


A Final Gift

by Fantasticbeastsandheretofindthem



Category: John Wick (Movies), John wick:chapter 2
Genre: Also this will forever be a smut-free fic unless you guys wanna see the new dog get laid, Amnesia, And also because the OC is a kid and our lord and savior john wick IS NOT A PEDOPHILE, Because I can, Blood, Dragons, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Everyone Is An Asshole, Ex: ghosts, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fire, Gen, Gun fights, Guns, Haunted Houses, Hurt/Comfort, Hypnotism, John finally gets some rest, John is still working on that retiring thing, John may seems like he doesn't care but he cares aggressively and violently, Knife fights, M/M, Major angst and major fluff, Mind Games, Mind Manipulation, Mutual Pining, Past Child Abuse, Pencil, Platonic love of course, Post Movie, Psychological Horror, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, The new dog is badass, There will be no dead dog in this fic I promise, assholes in love, because John will forever be in love with Helen and no one can tell me different, because the sex scenes in Knock Knock had traumatized me forever, he's getting better, kind of a crack fic, lots of blood, mostly canon, plot without porn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2018-09-27 06:35:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 81,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9980723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fantasticbeastsandheretofindthem/pseuds/Fantasticbeastsandheretofindthem
Summary: Either there was something terribly wrong with kids nowadays, or John just had been spending so many years of his life murdering people that he’d completely lost the ability to communicate with teenagers.Well, nobody can have it both ways, he supposed.Or perhaps, the problem washer— Atlas Greene, or Le petite Dragon, the 19-year-old freelancer who peeled his unconscious, bleeding-to-death ass off the street, who spoiled his pit bull with unlimited treats and long walks in the park, who claimed—rather unconvincingly—that she’d sworn an blood oath to keep him alive. With the kid by his side, the Baba Yaga would, in time, discover that there was something other than grief and vengeance in his life that was worth fighting for; through all of John’s pain and loss, the Dragon would, eventually, understand the one and only puzzle she thought she could never solve, the puzzle whose pieces were stolen from her a long time ago: How to be human.Sometimes, even the worst of us needed a little help.





	1. Bad Aim

Everything hurt. It was raining — _of fucking course_ — and the ground beneath him was cold as ice. He felt an empty cartridge and some rocks with sharp edges dug into his back as he was slammed neck-first against the tarred road. 

He hoped the dog was fine.

John Wick was never one to regret, never one to brood over the past—all the shots he fired, the blood he shed, the lives he ended, he couldn’t take them back; so he’d never dwelt on what was done. That was one of the many things that’d made him who he was today: he never regretted. But now, as he lied on the ground in a filthy back alley that he’d no idea how he ended up in, with a karambit folder buried deep in his side, a bullet in his bicep and the man currently on top of him trying to turn his face into a pile of ground beef, he suddenly started to regret bringing his dog out of the shelter. He was responsible for the dog’s life, and now he’d put them both in danger. He tried to throw the man off him, but he was surprisingly weak—blood loss, he thought, vaguely—and his vision was starting to blur. Not a good sign. All he could do was keeping the knife a few inches away from his eye sockets. He could take the guy, there was no doubt: but he had to do it fast. He was running out of time. 

_Focus. Focus. Use the pain to fight back._

He did a quick calculation, loosen his grip on the guy’s hand, and brought up his elbows. 

The knife moved a fraction. 

_Now!_ He let go completely. The man lost his balance and brought the knife down, hard, into his left cheek. Pain swallowed him, the warm, metallic taste of his own blood exploded in his mouth. He twisted around, bit down at the blade and headbutted his assaulter. The man stumbled backwards and a solid uppercut landed on his jaw. He fell to one side, John rolled to the other and quickly dragged himself back on his feet. He inhaled and pulled out the knife from his face. Hurt like a sonovabitch. His right thigh was on fire, and breathing was worse. 

_Stop. Focus. What’s the next step？What’s going to happen? ___

His assaulter had quickly recovered and was ready to pounce. He could wait for the man to come for him. It would be a lot easier. He gripped the knife, waiting for the man to lunge at him.

But he didn’t.

John Wick watched, perplexed, as his assaulter collapsed on the ground, his menacing grey eyes now lifeless. A dagger, looking too long and heavy for throwing, had penetrated his skull from behind, the point coming out of the spot between his eyebrows. An instant kill. 

He limped towards his assaulter and crouched. The dagger looked familiar to him, somehow. He inspected the hilt. Wooden, ebony or painted black. He ran his hand across the surface. Elaborate inscriptions. He wiped the blood and rainwater from his eyes and squinted.

A dragon, open-winged and baring its teeth, stared coldly back at him. 

He hissed. Now he knew where he’d seen this dagger before. He didn’t expect this, and liked it less. He checked the other side despite already knowing what he would see. A line of ancient greek laced the bottom of the handle: _Tell me, how does it feel with my teeth in your heart? ___

He shut his eyes. He’d grimaced at the tasteless joke the first time he had seen it: kids, and the things they’d done to classic literature… But now, the line just sent shivers down his spine.  
_What’s the next step? Think. Focus. ___

Light footsteps emerged from the darkness behind him. It was mostly because of the rain, the splashes of water beneath her feet that’d given her away; he had seen her snuck up on a target soundlessly in an empty palace hallway. The poor man’s death had come in silence, too.

“Bad aim?” He called out, still crouching. 

He didn’t turn. He didn’t need to.

He had a knife. He could take her. But it would be long, messy, and very, very painful. It would be hell of a fight.  


He was running out of time.

“My aim,” the crisp, chilling london accent cut through the heavy rain as she stepped into his sight:”is perfect. I would let you hear the trumpets if I’d come to collect your soul, Baba Yaga.”


	2. Atlas Greene

She stepped pass him to the corpse, crouched, and pulled out her dagger. He caught a glimpse of the  
inside of her trenchcoat.  
Four rows of combat knives flashed silver under the moonlight, all unsheathed. _Well, aren't we cliche. ___“The second one of the middle row,” he said. His legs gave out and he sat down, heavily, half leaning against the corpse for support. It wasn’t the best stance in terms of defense, but he wasn’t given the luxury of choices, either.  
“Pardon?” She stood up, smoothed her coat and everything back in their place.  
“The second one of the middle row,” he gestured to her coat, “That one’s for throwing.”  
She rolled her eyes. “Thanks, Captain Obvious. I thought I’d better introduce myself before showing up unannounced.” _Smart kid. ___  
He tilted his head back and raised an eyebrow at her: “And you are?”  
He knew, very well, who she was. Maybe he had been retired for 5 years, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t gossip. 5’4, tawny hair, hazel eyes, skin pale enough to remind people of the exposed bone white in a rotting carcass tightened over cheekbones sharper than her knives. It wasn't unusual for a youngster to obtain the membership––they were always welcoming new blood, after all–but Atlas Greene had been 13 when she’d gotten hers.  
He didn't know what she'd done for it, but no one, including John, had expected her to last-especially not when someone had opened an account with one million to hunt her down a year after. 

The contract had gone all over Europe.

She had still been a mystery then; the only thing people had known about her was that she was a kid, and kids meant easy money.  
They didn't know she was different, and when they did, it was too late.They had expected her to run; they had expected to find her in a slum with her back against the wall, helpless. But she just… disappeared. They’d never rounded her up, and fresh bodies piled up on the streets of Birmingham, London, Paris, then on those of Munich; some were amateurs, and some professionals, all ended up with one or two detached limbs and a slashed throat.

That was the first thing they learned about her, the quiet little girl with cold eyes who’d come from nothing: She was good with knives.

She found her way into Ukraine, eventually, where she tracked down the man who’d attached the price to her head. Rumors said that it had been a mayhem, a bloodbath. All she had was two knives and her own hands, but her contract was pulled, and she’d walked out of his house unscathed.  
She disappeared for another two years after that, and when she came back, she came with an impossibly successful task assigned by the Italians and more blood on her hands than anyone in the business had ever imagined.  


She remained a freelancer to this day.

They thought she would get picked up on the way by one of the proprietors, be trained, and eventually become a mob enforcer, just like most of the kids in the business would start out; but again, they were wrong. She didn’t seek protection or lust after higher positions; she plunged into their world and chose this life herself, but at the same time, it seemed like she wanted to be as distant as possible, with no strings attached. She was no longer a ghost story, but she was like a shadow, fading into the darkness, invisible by the light; always one step ahead, always one step behind, silent, lurking. Those in the business, they had a name for her–two names, even–the Americans called her Gabriel, the Angel of Death; the Europeans, who knew her better, called her “Le petit Dragon”.

It wasn’t hard to tell which one she would prefer from the hilt of her favorite dagger.

He felt a drop of blood slid down into his left eye and blinked it away.  
She winced. “They really did fuck you up this time, didn’t they?”  
“I still don’t know you,” he persisted. She raised an eyebrow.  
“I won’t be surprised if this is some kind of temporary amnesia caused by your concussion. It’s ok, you can decide when you want to remember me after we get the hell out of here. Can you walk?”  
She wanted him alive. Why? Was she making an investment?  
The Atlas Greene he’d heard about was smarter than this.  
“What do you want?” He peered at the kid through heavy eyelids. “I want to keep you alive.” She held out a hand. “Come on. Let’s go home.”  
He’d heard of that tone of voice before; he’d just said the same thing to his dog in the exact same way 3 days ago. _Let’s go home._ She sounded so genuine, so sincere. But John Wick knew that sincerity didn’t exist in their world. 

Not for someone like him. 

She was hiding something; what’s worse, she was using his own words against him. It wasn’t fair. _I don’t have a home,_ he wanted to shout at her: _I don’t have a home._  


But he didn’t have a choice, either.

He was suddenly so tired, tired from running and hurting.  
He stared at her pale, slim hand.  
_What’s the next step? Think. Focus. What do I do?_  
Finally, John Wick set his jaw and looked up at the girl. “Where’s my dog?”


	3. Your idiot of an owner

“What the fuck?” I spat, staring at the two man in front of me in disbelief. Well, this was unexpected. I looked down to the dog.“Are you seeing this?”  
He whined in reply. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,”I growled. Richard Fucking Dixon. I didn’t come all the way from fucking Switzerland so the former _legend ___of the hitman business could go wrestling with Richard Fucking Dixon in a filthy ass back alley like grade school kids.  
I gritted my teeth. What the fuck was Wick doing? Where were his guns? I glanced at the ground, searching for a possible explanation of the shit show I was witnessing.  
Oh, there it was. A Remington 9mm revolver, painted silver and rosy gold. I raised my eyebrow. Sonja Bialkowski’s gun. He fought Sonja before this. 

And took her gun.

Wow. That must've hurt like hell.

Sonja Bialkowski fought nasty, and she was very, very hard to kill. I could take her, but she would've turned me into a beehive before that. Well, this explained a lot, such as why Richard Dixon was still standing on his feet instead of being beaten into a bloody pulp- he'd waited until the better ones had worn out and injured John Wick badly enough before he struck; also, he'd waited until Wick emptied the cartridge.  
Coward.  
If Wick had had a bullet left in that gun, that fucking amateur would’ve dropped dead before he even got his hand on him. I squinted at the legend in front of me. He was limping, his once expensive-looking suit was torn at several places, and a karambit folder was buried deep in his left abdomen. I winced. The immortal Baba Yaga wasn’t so scary anymore, was him?  
How he survived the last 3 days was beyond me. Excommunicado, with a price of 14 million on his head… Jesus Christ, if it was me I wouldn’t have last a minute. I was a survivor, I had been hunted much more times than I’d like and escaped all of them; but 14 million? I probably would’ve just killed myself.  


Speaking of surviving, those who’d gone after Wick probably weren’t doing so well for themselves now. I expected more from Sonja; but she was also batshit crazy and would do anything for money—which pretty much summed up every single hitman in our business; hell, I would do anything for 14 million too, but getting killed? No thanks, I’d pass.  
On the other hand, this was exactly what I’d expected from a slimy cunt with less than half a brain, just like this certain Richard Dixon whom I believed would be no more in 10 minutes. Shot, stabbed, with several suspected cracked ribs, a possible concussion and blood gushing out of his side non-stop, he was still John Wick and could crush that sloppy punkass Dixon like a bug.

The sloppy punk hammered a fist into Wick’s right temple and knocked him down.

“Scratch that,” I mumbled. The dog whined again.  
I reached down absent-mindedly and stroke his neck. He was surprisingly likable. “You know,” I glanced at him: “If your idiot of an owner got himself killed in this shit show, you can come with me. I’ll get you steak. When was the last time you two ate?” 

He looked up at me with big round eyes. 

I sighed. “So I’d thought.” Unbelievable.  
This was down right animal abuse. “So what do you say? Hmm? We can play catch. It’d be fun.”  
They were both on the ground now, with Dixon pinning the other man down, his knife aiming at… The face? My hand itched. I hadn’t really wanted to kill Dixon before, but now I wanted, more than ever, to smack him on the back of his head. Hard. He wasn’t even aiming at some place fatal like the eyes; his was aiming at—Saint Peter deliver me from foolishness—the forehead. The fuck did he think he was doing? Giving Wick a tattoo?  
“Don’t worry,” I murmured to the dog,”He’ll make it. If he couldn’t even take this bloody moron, he isn’t worth our time anyway.”

With a solid headbutt, Wick knocked his assaulter off him and got back to his feet.

He’d trapped that fancy knife between his teeth.

Through his cheek.

I watched in utter disgust as John Wick closed his fingers around the handle and pulled it out of his face, unflinching.

I cringed.

Hope he didn’t lose his tongue, or my job would be much more difficult.  
The dog’s whine was now loud enough to expose us. Ok, that was about enough. He could finish Dixon in less than 5 minutes, but I might as well save him some time. I glanced at Sonja’s empty revolver.  


It gave me an idea.

I pulled out my favorite dagger, focusing on the target. 

Sorry, Baba Yaga, but this one was mine. 

I threw out the dagger. It sank into the back of Dixon’s head and he dropped like a sack of potatoes. Goodbye, asshole.  
It was a good throw—the dagger wasn’t made for throwing; it was too heavy, and the balance between the hilt and the blade was terrible for remaining airborne, but I hit the target regardless. Go me.

I wished I had someone to videotape that, so next time some wanker decided to have a say in my gun skills, I’d have a solid comeback.

“Stay,” I mumbled to the dog. Hope Wick had taught him at least something useful. I walked, slowly, into the light. The dog didn’t follow. Good boy.  
Our legend was now crouching next to Dixon’s corpse, staring at my dagger.  
He definitely recognized it. I almost smiled. He remembered. The Baba Yaga, the man, the myth, the legend. After all these years. Be still, my heart.  
Now that I was closer, I could see that the inside of his right thigh had been slit open. Sonja Blaikowski’s work. If I didn’t get him the hell out of here soon, the blood loss would get to him.  


He heard my footsteps. I knew he did. But he didn’t turn.

“Bad aim?”

Oh, you wish.

I was offended. I hadn’t work my ass off for 6 bloody years so I could go after an exiled top rank killer and die young at the age of 19; I worked my ass off to survive.  
“My aim,” I exclaimed, “was perfect. I’ll let you hear the trumpets if I’d come to collect your soul, Baba Yaga.” It was a shitty joke, but he’d get it. 

I stepped over to Dixon and retrieved my dagger. I wiped off the blood and brain matter with the hem of my coat, then pressed a quick kiss to the hilt. Happy hunting, pal. I reached into the inside of my coat and tucked the dagger away.  
“The second one of the middle row,” he said, his voice hoarse. I glanced at him. Sharp eyes. He’d stolen a glance of my accessory collection.  
“Pardon?” I stood up and straightened my coat. “The second one of the middle row. That one’s for throwing,”  
He had an answer for everything, didn’t he? I rolled my eyes.”Thanks, Captain Obvious. I thought I’d better introduce myself before showing up unannounced.”  
He raised his eyes to meet mine. “And you are?”  
That was a really good question. Sometimes I wondered about that myself, too.  
I looked him over: 3 bullet wounds, one on his right bicep, two on the forearm. A bashed-up face. Definitely concussion. The nasty wound on his forehead was trickling blood, and he was trying in vain to keep it out of his left eye. I winced. “They really did fuck you up this time, didn’t they?” He stared at me. “I still don’t know you.”  
He knew, very well, who I was. He knew my dagger, at least.

Never mind. We didn’t have time for this.

“I won’t be surprised if this is some kind of temporary amnesia caused by your concussion,”I glanced at him, “It’s ok, you can decide when you want to remember me after we get the hell out of here. Can you walk?”  
“What do you want?”  
I pondered whether I should tell him. What could I tell him? What did I have to say?  
Would he believe me?  
I couldn’t carry him, but if I didn’t get him out of here now, he would die.  
I wouldn’t let that happen. Not again.  


So I told him the truth.

“I want to keep you alive,” I held out a hand: “Come on. Let’s go home.”


	4. Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat

He was lying on something soft.  
That was the first thing John Wick noticed when he woke up.  
Then, the white ceiling. And the IV in his arm.  
He tensed. Hell, was he in a hospital? He needed to get out, he needed to get away now–  
“Whoa, whoa. Easy. If you tear any of those stitches, I’ll be really pissed.” A hand grabbed his shoulder and pushed him back into the bed.  
They glared at each other.  
“You look like shit,” The girl stated, flatly.  
_You don’t say. ___

On the contrary, she looked… well.

She was wearing camouflage sweatpants and a loose-fitting black T-shirt that said “Come closer, I bite”; and now that he could see more clearly, he could tell that she wasn’t that scrawny waif in Moscow, not anymore. Still skinny and pale, but defined muscle was building up on her arms. It sounded ridiculous, but this life had done her good. At least she wasn’t starving.  
Something else was different about her, too. 

She seemed older. 

Physically, not much; but the look in her eyes belonged to someone crushed and wrung out by the waves of time.  
That happened, sometimes, when you joined the business too young an age. It would break you, and if you survived, it would harden you.

He couldn't decide which was worse.

She averted her eyes and went back to cleaning her knives.  
He sat up, this time slower, and looked around. They were in a small apartment; it wasn’t exactly furnished, in fact, it didn’t even look inhabited at all. On the left side of his bed was an empty kitchen, and on the right, a table and a second-handed sofa— on which sat the frowning teenager who clearly wasn’t going to volunteer any information. That was about it.

“How’s working?” He said, trying to start a conversation. She didn’t look up.  
“Depends on who’s asking.” _Kids… ___  
He sighed.“How about an old friend in Russia?”  
She raised an eyebrow. “So you’ve decided to remember me. I'm flattered. Although friend was quite an exaggeration, coming from you. We’ve never really met before. I’m Atlas, by the way.”  
“John,” He said, dryly.  
She gave him a curt nod and picked up another knife.  
He tried again.  
“So how’s working?”  
“Working is fine,” She was glaring at a folder with a chipped blade, “How’s the concussion?”  
“Non-existent.”

He felt like someone was hammering a nail into his skull. 

There must be a bathroom somewhere— he noticed that he’d been scrubbed clean from head to toe, smelling like ginger and citrus oil.  
His heart sank.  
_Shit._  
He stared down at the hospital gown he was wearing. “Where's my…”  
“... Clothes?”She looked up from her knives, “I threw them away. They were fucked up all over. And you were filthy.” 

He stared at her. 

She shrugged. “What? I had to clean you up a bit before I started to take care of the smaller wounds. I stitched up the big ones and stopped the bleeding first. I'm not an idiot. Besides,” she gestured to his head, “your hair was disgusting. It was caked with blood and grease and God knows what else. Ever heard of regular shampooing? It's a wonderful thing. Prevents lice and improves relationships. I gave you a scalp massage, by the way. You're very welcome.”  
_Damn it all to hell. _  
His throat felt dry. He couldn’t think straight.__

“Did you…”

Her eyes widened. She must've misread the look on his face.  
“No,” she waved her hand, indignant: “No, I didn't look anywhere I shouldn't have, for god sake. I think I can manage getting you into a bathtub without taking advantage of you, thank you very mu-”  
“ ...check the pocket of my trousers?”  
The kid closed her mouth with a click.  
Carefully, she set the switchblade down on a piece a rag, then reached for the leather pouch on the ground. She rummaged in it for a minute, then finally, a bracelet composed of silver flowers hang from her bony fingers. 

John exhaled and closed his eyes.

“You want it?”  
Her voice was soft.  
“No,” he shook his head, “Not right now.” She nodded once and set it down on a corner of the table, where he could see.  
“The anesthetic will wear off in a couple of hours,” she wiped the honing oil off her hands, “And it’ll hurt like hell. But you're probably used to it, so whatever. There's painkiller in the first-aid kit, let me know if you want some.” 

It was already hurting like hell, but she didn't have to know. 

“How bad?”  
She chewed the inside of her cheek, clearly making a list of his physical injuries in her mind. Finally, she sighed and got on with it.  
“Not as bad as it looked,” She glanced at his side, “ The one on your left abdomen didn't hit anything on the inside, praise the lord. Your shoulder was dislocated. I've taken care of that. There were some scratches, bullet wounds—” she pointed at his right abdomen with a karambit, “—some new, some old. Those already stitched up all got torn open. I don't know if you'd thought of it, but next time you decide to pull a stunt like this, at least not when you have a hole the size of my head on your stomach. That cut on your thigh was the nastiest. No sudden movements in at least a week. You have to make sure it heal right, unless you want to hop on one foot the rest of your life. For the record, that’s what you get for being a complete idiot and let Sonja Bialkowski go anywhere near you when she was off her meds. Seriously, what the hell were you thinking?”  
The name didn’t ring a bell.  
“5’4, missing an ear, dirty blonde hair and heterochromia?”  
She grinned. “That’s her.”  
_Oh. _So she had a name.__  
“She bit me.” The kid snickered. “Yeah, yeah, cry me a river.”  
She reached under the sofa and unsheathed a cutlass. “Oh, and your pretty face was ruined. That was a smart move—nasty, but smart. Took me 2 hours to get the stitches right. It’ll leave a mark, but don't worry. Chicks dig scars.”  
He fought the urge to roll his eyes.  
“Anything else you'd like to share?”  
She glanced at him. “Yes,” she carefully set aside her toys, “I brought breakfast. It's in the paper bag next to your bed. You should eat something.”  
He didn't move. The kid shrugged and turned her attention back to her knife. She touched her finger to the blade, then picked up a polishing cloth.  
He sighed. “What are you doing?”  
She looked up. “Me? I'm cleaning my talons. The real question is, what were you doing with Richard Dixon in that filthy back alley last nigh—”  
“What are you doing, kid?”  
She knew what he was talking about.  
The girl opened her mouth, then closed it again. She looked away and sighed. “Well?”  
She looked back to him and set her jaw.  
“I'm keeping you alive.” _Oh, right. ___  
“We're probably pass that now, don't you think?”  
“No.” She deadpanned.  
_Whatever. ___  
“Are you making an investment? If so, I'll have you know that this is a very bad idea.”  
She gave him a blank look. “Define investment.”  
“Keeping me hostage until the contract doubles again, then take care of me yourself. It's not as easy as it sounds, I assure you.”  
She threw him a dirty look. “I don't know what they said about me,” she said, slowly, “But I'm not stupid. Staying alive in this business requires a certain level of intelligence, and I exceed that level.”  
_What a surprise. _“Did somebody send you?”__  
She sighed.  
“You can say that.”  
“Is he making an investment?”  
There was a moment of silence.  
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “No,” she said: “No, he isn't. No one is— _investing _—in anything. Rest assured, I'm not going to slit your throat in your sleep.” He thought over her words.__  
“Was it a good deal?”  
She frowned. “What?”  
“The money,” he said, impatient: “Was it good? He must've offered you a lot to babysit.”  
If he could get her to say something—anything—a number, a price, he could at least have a better chance of figuring out who was holding her leash.  
“No,” she said, annoyed: “He didn't. I'm not doing this for money—especially not his money.”  
He stared at her.  
“I thought you were a freelancer.”  
And a rather expensive one, so he'd heard.  
“I am.”  
“Then why are you doing this?”  
She looked down, and there was that moment of silence again.  
“To honor a marker.”  
_What? ___  
He stared at the kid.  
“Someone wasted your marker to keep me alive?”  
“Yes,” She rubbed her face, “He wouldn't use the word “wasted”, though.” He inhaled.  
This was madness. “Markers don't work like that,” he said, slowly, “Markers are used to take lives, not to save them.”  
She stared back at him, defiant. “This one is.”  
“You say that now,” he looked down, “Wait until that contract doubles again, and we’ll see who you can save.”  
She glared at him. “I just saved—” “No, you didn't.” —your dog.” She sighed, “I knew you got it covered. I saw.”  
He tried again. “Who's holding that marker?”  
She didn't answer.  
_Fine. ___  
“If you won't tell me what your boss want from me, I have no reason to trust you.”  
She muttered something under her breath.  
“He's not.”  
“Pardon?”  
“He's not my boss.” The kid sat back and crossed her arms. “Look, I don't need your trust. I need you to stay alive. I'm not holding you hostage, if that's what you'd thought. If you want to walk through that door right now, I won't be able to stop you. We both know that. But if you leave now, I'll be peeling your ass off some dump by dawn, and this time I won’t be so nice.”  
He raised an eyebrow. “That's a lot of “if”s.”  
She rolled her eyes. “I'm a very prudent person. Always planning ahead. And right now, I'm planning on keeping you alive, whether you like it or not. Please put back your IV, you're making my job worse.”  
He put it back.  
He thought about this. 

A marker. 

If she was telling the truth, then she didn't have a choice. But John Wick had once been a mob enforcer; he knew when people was hiding something from him. However, he wasn't going to reach over and choke the living daylight out of the kid until she told him what he needed to know; he wasn't that guy, not anymore.  
He huffed, frustrated.  
He would have to sort this out his least favorite way: stick around, and wait for things to unfold itself. He glanced over to the kid, who had put away all her stuff by now and was currently rubbing her temple like he'd given her a headache.

“So what happens now?”

She looked up at him.  
For a split second, he thought he saw something in her eyes–sadness, fear, regret, hope… something.  
Anything.

Then it was gone. 

He looked away and cleared his throat, feeling a bit clumsy. 

“Well,” She swung her legs off the sofa, “first of all, you’re going to drink that glass of water. And eat your breakfast. You’ll find your chance of survival drastically increases when you’re willing to contribute a small amount of efforts in not dying.”  
_Fine. _  
He picked up his glass and downed it.__

She almost smiled.

“And then,” she stood up and walked over to him, “You're going to stay here. I give you my word that no one will find you here in a week. You're safe. For now.”  
She reached out and checked his IV. “I’ll get someone to bring you supplies. Someone outside the system. He won't know.” She took off her watch and put it down on his bed, just an inch away from his hand: “The guy will come at 11 o’clock sharp in the morning to drop off your lunch, 5 in the afternoon to bring you dinner. He’ll bring fresh clothes and meds too, but if you want something else, just write it down on a piece of paper and slide it under the doormat. He’ll ring once and put the stuff by the door; wait inside until you hear him enter the elevator, then go pick it up. Don't talk to him, don't let him or anyone else see you, don't take anything inside if he's late or early, even just for a minute. Are we clear? Good. Give me your hand.” She reached into her pocket, found a pen and started writing on the back of his hand. “There's a phone in the kitchen. If you suspect that something's wrong, dial this number. Don't speak after I answer the call. Count to ten in your head then hang up. Can you memorize it?” He nodded. “Good. Smudge it.”  
She turned around and rummaged in her duffle bag.  
“This,” she said, putting the ruffled piece of paper down on his bed, “Is the map of this building and the nearby area. I won't come back here this week unless you call, so if someone comes visit, find the way out yourself, then wait for me at the spot I marked red. For your information, we’re currently on the 6th floor of this building, so you can cross jumping out of the window off your list of possible escape routes. There's a switchblade and a Glock handgun under your bed. Hope you don't have to resolve to that.”  
He stared at her, lost for words.  
She shrugged.  
“Not my first time babysitting.”  
_You don't say. ___  
“Oh, and you have to change your bandages twice a day. Don't let the wounds get infected. Drink plenty of water, eat healthy, and get some rest. Consider this a holiday. You’ll be fine.” She pressed something into his palm. Something cold and smooth.  
He closed his fingers around his bracelet, feeling the familiar rounded edges and the weight of it, the lost, non-existent warmth it’d once possessed.  
It felt safe.

It felt like home.

He looked up at the girl.  
“Thank you.” He said, finally.  
A brief smile crossed her face, and in that moment she looked so young, almost as young as her age: a child , fresh and radiant, her eyes soft and her skin fragile.  
“Don’t thank me,” she put on her fedora and adjusted the brim: “ _Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat. _Good luck, John.”__

_Didn’t look where you shouldn’t have, you say? ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello AO3! This is my first fic and I am still getting use to it so I apologize if the formatting looks kind of shit :/// also English isn't my first language so feel free to point out any existing spelling/grammar errors! Ok so I want to explain a thing- at the end of chapter4 , that "fortis fortuna Adiuvat" is one of John wick's tattoo(the one on his upper back) as some of you might've seen in the shower scenes of the movie. I found two possible translations(that both seemed pretty accurate):  
> 1\. Fortune favors the brave  
> 2\. It is only The Strong that goddess Fortuna comes to save  
> Personally I prefer the latter because it fits to the tone of the franchise better- it's deeper and darker, as John Wick is a character with a very dark past.  
> If you have any question, don't hesitate to leave a comment!


	5. Cigarette Break

“Good luck, John.” I hoisted the duffle bag onto my shoulder and started my way to the door.  
“Wait.” He called.  
I stopped, my hand hovering an inch above the door knob.  
“One quick question,” he cleared his throat: “Why don't you like guns?”  
I inhaled and shut my eyes.  
An image flashed before my mind: greasy table, food, the hollow ache in my stomach, my weak, trembling hands, desperate; the man sitting across from me and his piercing, sunken eyes.  
Danger.  
Hunger.  
He laid a napkin down in front of me and asked:  
“Why don't you like guns?”  
_No, no, no…_  
Something white and hot scorched my eyes, burning away the edge of my vision. 

I swore an oath.

I had to keep him safe.

“Because,” I turned around and looked him in his eyes: “I'm allergic to the sound of gunshots. Now, if you would excuse me, I'm going to take your hound of hell to the Hotel. I have some showing off to do.”  
I opened the door and stepped outside.  
I didn't need to explain to him; he was one of the smartest man in the business, he'd understand.

I was going to buy him some time. 

I took the stairs and swung by the entrance of the second floor.  
Nothing.  
Where the hell did you…  
I crouched and whistled. Come on, who's a good boy?  
I snapped my fingers and whistled again.  
There were some movements in the darkness of the abandoned apartment in front of me. 

Claws clacking against the concrete. 

John Wick’s pit bull came running, excited.  
“Hey,” I smiled as he licked my face: “Where did you go? I thought I told you to stay. Ok, ok. I forgive you.” I reached into my duffle bag and pulled out a leash.  
He whined.  
“It's only for the show,” I scratched his jaw, “Tell you what, if you go through this with me, I'll take you to the Central Park and let you chase pigeons. Do we have a deal?” I reached for his neck and slowly began to fasten his collar. “Don't bite me,” I warned.

I had to give the dog some credits. He was perfectly disciplined: quiet, steady, not easily distracted. Wick or whoever owned him before trained him well. 

I peered into the Hotel. 1,2,3… 6 people in total.  
Good. Not too crowded, not empty either. All new faces. No one from the Big League.  
It seemed like the toughest motherfucker in the house would be me.  
I opened the door, paused, stepped back and pulled out my phone. 

I needed to make sure everyone in the lobby saw him.

I leaned back on the door frame, pretended to be answering a call.

I counted to 30 in my head. 30, 29, 28...

Ok, that was enough. I put my phone away and looked down to the dog.  
“Ready?” I whispered, “Showtime.”  
I gave his leash a tug and we strode into the Continental ground. 

Heads turned.

Conversations died down. 

The dry pads of my sneakers slapping against the smooth marble floor was now the loudest sound in the entire lobby. 

They recognized him.

_That's it, rookies. Eyes on me._

I went straight to the front desk. Charon was there, his classic we’ll-empty-your-pocket-while-you're-out-there-murdering-people-and-probably-get-yourself-killed-in-the-process smile faltered. His eyes went pass me to the dog, then back to me again. 

The dog wagged his tail at our favorite concierge.

“Miss Greene,” his voice was, for the first time ever, uncertain. “We’ll have you for how many nights?”  
I took off my hat. “None,” I smiled at him: “Is the manager available?”  
Silence.  
He was staring at the dog again.

Fine. Take your time.

“Sure,” he cleared his throat, finally: “He's in the bar.”

I totally did not, yet totally did, in a way, expect this.  
The fuck was Winston, the 75-year-old head of the Continental, doing in the bar at 8 in the morning?  
Didn't the man has some healthier hobbies, like, I don’t fucking know, golf? Probably some yoga?  
I grimaced. “This early? That's a dangerous habit.” Still staring. I snatched a pencil from the front desk just to see if he would notice.  
He didn't.  
I coughed loudly. He jumped, startled. "Yes," he said dryly, “Right. Should I inform him on your visit, Miss?”  
He was still staring.  
Oi.  
“Please,” I nodded: “Tell him I've come as a messenger. Could’ve just called, but you know them Swedish. Hopeless old schools.”  
He nodded and picked up the receiver. I was about 98% certain that he didn't hear a word I said.  
Fine, I could find the way to the bar myself anyway.  
I gave him a smile and stepped away from the front desk. “Have a wonderful day, sir. It's alway good to be back.” I added simply, and pulled the leash.

The dog remained where he was, unmoved, looking up at Charon like he was expecting the man to whip out a bag of treat from the front pocket of his very expensive suit. 

You got to be fucking kidding me.

I pulled again. The dog whined, loudly. I gave Charon another stiff smile and cursed under my breath. 

Little bastard. I took back whatever the fuck I said about the dog being disciplined and trained well.

I glared at the dog, then at Charon. This was just not my lucky day, was it?

“Miss Greene?” He called.  
What now?  
“Yes?”  
“You can leave him here,” his voice had a strange, alien quality that I'd never heard coming from him before; it took a second for me to realize that it was... Concern.

“We know each other. I'll take care of him for you.” 

Wow.

I'd never thought him to be a dog person.

 _Excuse you, Mr. Expert-in-everything,_ I thought, bitterly, _I reckoned I’d be fine keeping a god damn dog on a leash. So thank you very much, and **fuck off.**_

“Thank you,” I tightened my grip on his leash: “But it won't be necessary. We're not going to stay for long.” I pulled his leash again, this time harder. Come on, boy, we had a job to do.  
The dog finally stood up and walked towards me.  
Thank god. I made a mental note to ask Wick about the history between these two when I finally went back in a week or two.  
I slipped Charon’s pencil into my pocket.  
I'd decided. He wasn't getting it back.

We began to walk away, the dog reluctantly dragged his footsteps beside me, all the while kept looking back to the front desk with pure longing. Charon raised his hand and sullenly waved at him.

Too far. Too fucking far.  
I didn't get paid enough for this.

The elevator slowly descent. I fumbled with the pencil in my pocket. Maybe I should rehearse my lines…. Oh wait, I didn't have lines to rehearse.  
Dammit. What the hell should I say?  
I looked to the dog.  
“You’ll back me up, yes?”  
He wagged his tail.  
“I knew I can trust you,” I said as we stepped out of the elevator. “Let's see if Addy has something for you to snack on. Maybe some beef jerky. I don't fucking know. You’ll like Addy, she's a friend of your buddy John….”

I was still nagging at him when we stopped in front of the iron door to the bar.  
“Have you ever been to some place fancy before?”The dog howled.  
Oi.  
If he kept up this kind of behavior, the Continental might eventually draw up a whole new set of rules for the members’ pet management.  
And I would be the first ever to have my membership revoked over an under-disciplined pit bull.  
I signed and looked down to him. “Welcome to wonderland.”  
I fished out a coin from my pocket.

The bar, just as I'd suspected, was empty.  
Even Addy was no where to be seen.  
Odd.  
I looked to the man sitting in a corner seat. He was reading something from the newspaper, the glass of martini in front of him untouched.  
“Be nice, ok? He's the one who asked me to help. If it wasn't for him, your Johnny boy would've been dead by now.” I murmured to the dog.  
“Maybe you can persuade him to give you a tummy rub. Let's go.”

“You'd never stricken me as one who drinks to forget,” I casually leaned against the velvet booth divider.  
The dog halted abruptly and sat down.  
Winston didn't look up. “And you'd never stricken me as one who deliver messages.”  
Fair enough.  
“Where's our lovely bartender?”  
He took off his glasses and carefully folded it up.  
“A cigarette break. Her job can be quite taxing, sometimes. People like to ask questions.”  
And she wouldn't be responsible for volunteering information if she wasn't …. _There. ___  
Aha. I wasn't looking forward to having this conversation in complete privacy, but trust the head of the continental to be a paranoid sonovabitch and make the situation as suspicious as it could get.  
Fantastic.  
“How long does she get?” How long did we have?  
“5 minutes,” he gestured to the seat across from him, “Why don't you sit down, child?”  
I pulled out the chair and sat down. The dog lay down on the floor, resting his big head on my left foot.  
“From Sweden,” I pulled out a silver envelope from the inside of my jacket, “The Elmerssons sent their regards.”  
I slid it across the table. He caught it with two fingers and gave me a curt nod.  
“Have a drink, Athlyana,” he jerked his chin at the martini between us: “Compliments from the house.”  
Oh? Since when?  
“I wasn't supposed to drink at the Continental,” I reminded him: “I'm not of age.” He frowned. “I thought you just turned 23.”  
“No,” I said patiently, “I turned 19 in May.”  
He chuckled. “My apologies,” he picked up the glass and took a sip, “I'm not good with birthdays. So what can I do for you today, child?”  
Hold on, let me find my wish lists…. “Not much,” I smiled at him: “Just thought you might want to meet an old friend.”  
_There. I found your precious Jonathan. Look, I even kept his bloody dog. I did my job. Happy now? ___  
He glanced at the dog. “Ah, yes,” he put down the glass, “What happened?”  
“Well,” I reached down and patted the dog, “I went for a walk last night and came home with this… stray.” 

____“A stray, you say.” He grinned. “Not just _any_ stray, though.”_ _ _ _

____We both knew we weren't talking about the dog._ _ _ _

______“No,” I admitted: “No, he isn't.”  
He nodded and took another sip of his drink.  
“So what are you going to do with him, Athlyana?” 

He knew bloody hell what.  
_You brought me to him,_ I glared at him: _You wanted this._  
He raised an eyebrow, amused.  
I signed.  
“I'm thinking about keeping him,” I sat back and look him in the eyes: “I don't trust him to be left to his own devices. He may wander off to the wrong street, or fall into the wrong hands. Can't let that happen. You may find it hard to believe, _sir, _but I'm not a complete bastard. I've always had a soft spot for wounded animals.”__  
He chuckled.  
“He's a pit bull,” he pointed out: “Bred as a fighter. Every street is a wrong street to him.”  
“I know.” But they wouldn't get to him. They wouldn't. 

______They had to go through me first._ _ _ _ _ _

__________He took another sip.“Any idea what happened to his owner?"  
Finally.  
“No,” I smiled at him, “Not a clue. But he must've been truly desperate to abandon his dog like that, don't you think? Maybe he was hurt. Badly.”  
I paused to make sure he got the message.  
I inhaled. “Maybe he's dead.” 

______Winston’s eyes sparkled. He understood._ _ _ _ _ _

__________I looked away and continued.  
“But of course, I wouldn't happen to know any of these," I shrugged, "I'm just a humble teenage freelancer, I don't know things. And suppose I do, they won't listen to a child like me– so what's the point of knowing?”  
_But they listened to you._  
_They believe you. And I needed them to believe that John Wick was dead._  
_If you wanted this man to live, help me._  
Winston eyed me for a moment. His crooked lips twisted into a knowing smile.  
“I see. Guess I'll have to wait until the words get around.”  
He emptied his glass, “Suppose we'll find out.”He put on his glasses and looked down to whatever he'd been reading.  
“Suppose we will,” I nudged the dog with a foot and stood up. Time to go.  
I turned around and walked away, with the dog paddling excitedly beside me.  
Right. The park.  
"Hey," I called over my shoulder, "Do you guys sell snack packets or something like that? Peanuts? Beef jerky?" Or some canned dog food?  
"You can't feed him peanuts, Athlyana," his tone was patient, but there was a high possibility that he was snickering. "Or any existing nut, for that matter. A lot of dogs are allergic to them."  
Great. I was one step away from poisoning John Wick's dog. Let's not talk about what happened to the last guy.  
"Um," I cleared my throat, "It's not for him, definitely not. I just, like, have a sudden craving for junk food. Anyway, thanks for the fun fact." He was definitely snickering now. _Yeah, yeah. Gloat all you want, dog expert._  
"Well then, no, we don't have snack packets. But I suspect that there's probably a bag of cheese cracker somewhere on the liquor shelf, just behind that bottle of 1974 Armagnac brandy. It's way too salty for dogs, but it won't kill them.Besides, I doubt that our bartender will notice anything if you take just a little."  
I stepped behind the bar, find the bag of crackers and stuffed the whole bag into my backpack.  
Winston signed. "If Addy catches you, I have nothing to do with this."  
"Yeah," I walked towards the door: "Thanks. We'll go before she comes back."  
“I hope you know what you're doing,” he called after me.  
“Shit, I hope I do,” I mumbled to myself. 


	6. Le Petite Dragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please. If you're reading this please leave a comment or something, it really means a lot and it keeps me going.(plus it lets me know that the fandom is still alive)

_6 years ago, in Moscow_

One. 

The stained glass shattered. Panicked screams. Blood spouted. The bullet went straight through the neck.  
He hoped he could make it to dinner on time.

Two. 

Right in his forehead. The impact of the shot threw the man backwards, slamming into the wall beside and the painting hanged on it. 

Shame. He really liked the art style. 

Helen would’ve loved this place. She was a photographer, and like all photographers she had a precise, delicate aesthetic. Maybe they could travel here, to Moscow. After their wedding. Not for Honeymoon, though. Russian was too… cold. Rationally speaking.  
She would prefer somewhere with warmth. Somewhere gentler. He knew she would.

Three.

The last one dropped like a sack of potatoes. Three bodyguards in total. 

He should’ve brought more. 

Not that it would’ve stopped him, though. However, he did appreciate their… Miscalculation. Made the job easier. He could use a quick job. He had a date tonight.  
He checked his watch.  
His position was already exposed, but he had two minutes left. More than enough.  
One of the perks of doing a mission by stealth–– better yet, as a sniper–– was that you could always be one step ahead. One huge step.  
He readied his aim, his finger on the trigger, all set for one last shot. He located his target through the scope. The man had broken into a sprint, frantically shouting in Russian. Too bad that he couldn’t outrun a bullet, and the nearest station was a minute away.  
No one would hear his cry for help.

He followed his target through the long empty hallway.  
One, two… He heard footsteps emerging from behind. Shit, they were faster than he’d estimated.  
A bullet zipped past him, crashing into the concrete. His left ear rang. “He’s on the roof!”  
He rolled to one side and scrambled to his feet.  
Now his only window was closed, and he got a fresh bloody scratch on his cheek to wear to dinner.  
Helen would be pissed.  
He pulled out a handgun from the back of his trousers and fired. One through the chest, the other his forehead.  
_You shouldn’t have come alone._  
John Wick quickly reset the clock in his head. Five minutes. Now he had five minutes to get down this damn roof, go to the west wing of the building, and find the still-breathing target who would very likely have already escaped by the time he got there. Not including the time he needed to take down those fifty— now forty-nine— guards he’d run into on the way down. He cursed under his breath and ran.

He dashed down the stairs. There were footsteps ascending from the fourth floor—he knew this, because that was the only floor in the east wing that hadn’t been completely demolished by him.  
They would meet on the seventh. He counted the footsteps. At least ten of them. Good. _Go on and put all your eggs in one basket, I’ll break them at once._  
He tightened his grip on the gun.

Ninth floor. He heard something else. Shoutings. Gunshots. _What the hell…_ “There’s another!” Someone screamed, but the rest was cut off by a gagged whimper. 

They started the party without him? How rude.

He slowed down his pace and listened.  
None of the gunshots synced with the screams or the sound of bodies dropping to the ground. So that “another” one was fast. Very fast. Either a very bad shot, or came without a gun.  
Sounds of blood spluttering, a gurgling noise.  
So, a knife fighter then. Must be a big guy.  
The cast iron handrail rattled. The metal door of the emergency exit let out a weak shriek when being yanked open, and he heard a furious roar: “Get her!”  
A woman? Now that was interesting. John Wick knew a lot of women in the business that were incredibly skilled and unquestionably lethal, but none of them—none—would be reckless enough to threw herself into a gunfight with a knife in her hand.  
He hastened his descent. 

He could worry about his unexpected backup later, after the job was done. Or, if lucky, he would never cross her path.

Seventh floor. He dashed to one side, flung himself over the handrail and roundhouse kicked a man in his head. He staggered backwards, and John seized the opportunity to knock the gun out of his hand.  
A bullet grazed his shoulder, and another cut through his body armor. He gritted his teeth and looked down to the crimson slowly spreading on his white shirt.  
Now Helen would definitely be pissed.  
He grabbed the one in front of him by his neck, slammed him into the wall and put a bullet in his head.  
One down.  
He turned to his left to face the one who ruined his shirt. The man was reloading his gun with trembling hands. An unfortunate timing. He punched him in the throat and shot him straight through the eye.  
Two down.  
A hand grabbed him by his shoulder, trying to throw him down the stairs. Wrong move. He reached back, grabbed a fistful of his sleeves and crouched, abruptly, bringing his assaulter down with him. The latter let out a surprised yelp. John whipped out his switchblade, brought up his hand and turned one, two, three times, wrapped the fabric around his wrist, trapping the man’s left arm under his elbow. He rammed the knife into his temple.  
Three down.

Fifth floor. The stairs were littered with bodies. Slashed throats, split skulls, opened chests and ripped-out intestines.  
Five. There were five. His anonymous friend took down five guards with a knife.  
Along with the eleven killed by him, they sent sixteen men for him in total.

They should’ve sent more.

Second floor. He checked the time. Took him seven minutes just getting down these god damned stairs. He felt a sudden urge to scream.  
_Easy now,_ he took a deep breath and closed his eyes: _Easy. You still have time._

_Bullshit._

He carefully and skillfully reloaded his handgun.  
The hallway was unnervingly quiet. He couldn’t even hear his own footsteps: the thick red carpet beneath his feet saw to that.  
Another turn.  
He looked out the window, just to be sure… Yes. Just around the corner was the passage that would take him to the west wing. He held up the gun and peered over his shoulder.  
His heart skipped a beat at the sight of the passage.

Then he stepped out from the dark.

This route was supposed to be heavily guarded, and he supposed it might’ve been, once—but not anymore.

There was blood. Blood everywhere.The walls and the elaborate painting on them were splattered with crimson and chunks of flesh; the six bashed-up corpse—or what was remained of them—sprawled out motionless on the floor. Same fight style: Knife wounds, disembowelment, and bite marks. Animal instinct fueled by blind rage. 

She had been here.

She had been here, and she had unleashed a bloodbath.  
He strode through the passage, the matted carpet pressed against his feet with a horrible dampness.

He heard a trembling voice, and he silently thanked God or whoever was watching over his sorry ass today. His target was still here. He wasn’t too late.  
The man was praying in Russian, half-choked by his tears. He was close, very close.  
John Wick went around the corner, his gun already positioned in his hands.

That was when he saw it.

At the corner, where the hallway took another turn, and the carpeted floor fade into smooth white tiles. He stared, transfixed, and a peculiar sense of terror slowly crept up from his chest.

There, on the gleaming, polished marbles, was a trail of bloody footprints.  
Half-dried, smeared around the edges, fresh and bare-footed. It stretched all the way across the floor in a single straight line, following the frightened man to the end of the hallway, to the door of his office.  
John Wick stared at his target. He was cursing in Russian, his hand frantically fumbling with the gold-plated door knob.  
It was locked from inside.  
_Pull the trigger,_ He told himself: _He’s right there. Pull the trigger, finish the job, and you can go home. You can go home, have that dinner with the woman you love, live your life, and never think of this evening ever again._

He lowered the gun.  
He couldn’t end this. Not yet.

Not without knowing where the footprints went.

It just stopped. How in the world did it just... stop?  
The trail of freshly-stamped blood ended a few steps behind the man. Like whoever left it just vanished into thin air.

His target was now banging on the wooden door with his fists, wailing, desperate.

Suddenly, it dawned on him. He realized what was so wrong about the footprints, what was so… Disturbing.

They were the feet of a child.

His target slumped against the door, his forehead resting on the smooth mahogany. He was silent.  
He was not praying. Not anymore. He had lost his last fraction of hope—but wasn’t to John. 

A soft clink smacked against the deafening silence between the two men. 

A drop of blood landed on the tiles, the muffled, wet sound rang across the empty hallway like a splash of rain, the kind that came not with the gentleness of a drizzle, but the thunders and fury of a storm.  
He thought of floods and earthquakes and tidal waves, and the ten plagues of Exodus, how the water was turned into blood, and the lives it took, the ground it poisoned.

Slowly, he looked up.  
Then he saw her, he finally saw her. 

Hanging upside down on the chandelier like a vampire bat, facing away from him, was a thing that tumbled straight from the slithering darkness of a man’s mind, the worst of all the worst fears.  
But it was a child.  
He could see it now. It was, without a question, a child.  
Drenched in blood, her left ankle hooked tightly onto the shimmering pole to support her weight, she looked nightmarish. Sinister. And _wrong,_ he thought. _My God, she looks so wrong._

The deep cut on her shoulder was still bleeding, forming a trickle to feed the crimson blossoms on the floor. Plip, plip, plop. A terrible, terrible song.

She hanged there completely still, a deformed gargoyle carved from flesh and bones and something else, something much, much worse.  
Slowly, she opened her arms and spread them, wide, like a bird would its wings.

No, he thought: Not a bird. Something colder, hungrier.

His target finally turned around. He heard it, too, he finally did—the Death’s ragged breathing hovering a few feets above his head. Waiting.  
She unhooked her ankle, wrapped her fingers around the golden ring, and swung down. She moved with an eerie grace and in a kind of astounding silence.

At that moment, John Wick realized the man was no longer his target.

He was her prey.

The man didn't have a chance to scream. She plunged and landed on him, slamming him into the wooden door. It let out a ragged creak. When she stood up a second after, his severed head was dangling from her bony fingers, like a cheap Halloween toy.

Finally, she turned to face him.

He took a step back. He’d seen her before. Just couple of hours ago. The little beggar at the front door, asking for a penny or a kind smile to get her through the day… He remembered the sickly paleness of that heart-shaped face, the protruding cheekbones, her fine, mousy long hair, and how he’d thought, _My goodness, she’s not going to survive the winter._ He’d thought that, perhaps, because she hadn’t been looking at him then.  
She was looking at him now.  
For the first time in his life, John Wick looked danger in the eyes and didn’t think “kill”, but wanted to turn and run. 

There was something so extremely unsettling about those eyes, her large, bloodshot hazel eyes. 

They were the coldest thing he’d ever seen his whole life. Like they were burning, but without heat. They were hard and piercing, fluid and glossy, feral yet serene; he looked into those eyes and saw a feverish shine, a poisoned darkness; a blinding halo, and those tainted sins of the fallen.

They were the eyes of a reptile.

He forgot to hold up the gun. He forgot how.  
He could only watch, and for the first time ever, helpless, as she raised her scraggy hand, the bloody blade of her dagger looking like a living thing under the pale moonlight. She flung out her arm, and the dagger sliced through those tens of thousands of muted ghosts standing between them, coming right at him.

He didn’t run. He couldn’t.

_So this is how the story ends._

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Wick opened his eyes.  
The apartment was still in complete darkness. He checked the time.  
4:23 AM.  
He sat up and buried his face in his hands.  
It felt so real, all of it. The weight of a gun in his hand, the weight of life, the weight of death. A deafening gunshot, the stench of blood in his nostrils, the rising of smoke. The fire that awaited in the chest of something fantastical, something monstrous, something with scales and teeth and too large an appetite. 

It burned.

 _Just a dream,_ he told himself: _It was just a dream. Nothing more, nothing less._  
Just a piece of shadowed memory, twisted and transformed into something horrible.  
His heart hammered in his chest. This was wrong. He'd dreamed this dream countless times throughout the years, but never like this. 

He could still feel the scales beneath his fingers. They were soft, somehow, like an open wound. He remembered the way they trembled under his touch, the ways they could be crushed— it was easy, it was _so easy_ —it shrank from him, but he reached out, he just _kept reaching—_  
He shook his head and cursed the image out of his mind. _No. Stop._  
He got up and staggered into the kitchen. He turned on the tap, cupped some water with his hands and splashed his face.  
He sat down on the cold kitchen floor. His eyes drifted to the phone lying on the wooden dining table. 

She said she would come back in a week.  
Two had passed.


	7. Tea?

“John,” I tapped him lightly on his damp cheek. “John. Wake up.” 

Nothing.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Damn it, damn it, damn it...  
I probably should’ve come back sooner.  
I really, really was the absolute worst when it came to things like this.

The trickle of tear running down the side of his face glistened softly in the dark. He was crying, but no sound was coming out of his trembling lips. Not even a sob or a whimper, only his ragged, wavering breaths. 

This was getting creepier and creepier. 

I signed and poked his forehead. “John.”

Nothing.

Dear Lord, was he in a coma? Fuck, I knew I shouldn’t have left him like that. What the hell was I thinking?  
“Come on, pal.” I grabbed him by his shoulders and shook. _Dammit, wake up. Talk to me. I need to know how bad it is._  
“Jonatha—"  
A solid uppercut landed on my jaw, knocking me to the ground.

I didn't see him move. I didn't see anything.

At first, I didn’t feel pain; I couldn’t even feel my face. I might’ve blacked out for a moment, and when I regained my consciousness, John Wick was on top of me, his one hand on my throat, pinning me to the floor; the gun I left him now pressed down on my left temple so hard my eyes watered. 

He slept with the gun in his hand. Why wasn’t I surprised?

I peered at his face. His eyes were still closed.  
Wow.  
This gotta be the most aggressive sleepwalking in the history of sleeping and the history of walking. 

I was starting to feel that punch now.

It was definitely going to bruise. 

His fingers dug deeper and deeper into my throat, cutting off the airflow in my trachea. I tried to take small, controlled breaths, but it hurt. God, it hurt.

When I peeled him off the street two weeks ago, he was hurt, weak and defenseless, and he needed my help. I never really thought of him as a threat, for he'd only ever been John to me, the man bleeding to death in a filthy back alley whom I'd sworn on my blood to keep alive.

I was getting too used to this concept that I forgot who he really was, what he could be, and the things he could do. 

I forgot why they all called him the Baba Yaga.

And now, as he trapped me beneath him, holding a gun to my head, I was once again reminded of all the stories they’d told us about him with frightened whispers in the dark, the stories about the Baba Yaga, and how he could kill a man in his sleep. I did believe those stories, I just haven't the need to think of them.

Just a twitch of his finger to blow out my brains, or a flick of the wrist to snap my neck; he could end me, I thought, with a vague sense of surrealism, he could end me right here, right now, and he wouldn't even know before tomorrow morning. 

I didn't dare to move a muscle. I just lay there, petrified, and I lay still. 

I didn't know how long we stayed like that. I didn't know if he would stop. I didn't care. 

Finally, after what felt like a millennium, he loosened his grip on my throat and got off me. I scrambled to my feet, a bit unsteady, and backed away.

I held a hand up to my throat and coughed, then quickly covered my mouth.  
_Shh. Don't let him hear you._

My vision blurred. My chest hurt, and I breathed desperately with my mouth, swallowing the fresh, cool air into my aching lungs until breathing felt right.  
Cold sweat streamed down my forehead, stinging my eyes.

John Wick slowly turned around, paused for a second, and started to walk back to the bed. I pondered whether I should help–he had his both eyes closed, after all–but decided it in my best interest to leave him alone.

He got back in the bed himself and lay down. He slowly pulled the cover up to his chest.  
He was still holding the gun.

I stood back and watched in amazement and horror.

Well, at least now I knew that he was fine. Generally speaking.

I stretched for a bit to check on my backside. Yep, I definitely pulled a muscle there.  
Or several.

I realized I was trembling. 

My hand itched; I wanted my knives. I wanted to feel…. In control.  
I wanted that reassuring coldness back in my sweaty palms, but I knew that if I took out my knives now, I would be tempted to use them. So I just stood there, shaking, afraid, and weak, disgustingly weak.

I wondered what she would do if she knew about this, if she knew about my… _Weakness._

I took another deep breath and squeezed my eyes shut. 

_She's not here. She doesn't know._

“She doesn't know,” I said out loud before I could stop myself. My heart pounded violently in my chest.  
_And I'll keep it that way._

I took a step forward and peered at his face.  
He was still crying.

Ok.

I staggered into the kitchen and sat down on the stool. I shook my head, trying to lessen the impact of his assault.  
Fuck, that punch was nasty.  
And it would bruise. It would. Uglily. 

I got up and checked the fridge.  
It was empty.  
Of course. Someone remind me why I got a fucking fridge in the first place. Jokes on me for thinking the legendary killing machine, the pure badassery that was our Johnny boy would at least need an ice pack for his freshly dislocated limb. 

Why, silly me, he probably couldn’t even feel pain.

I closed the fridge and sat down, slumping against its cold surface. I brought my knees up to my chest, feeling drained all the sudden.

I didn’t have to check to know that he was still crying. I could hear his quivering, uneven pants. It was louder, somehow, and my eardrums throbbed with the sound of his silent torment. It was a naked, fragile sound, like he was cradling something explosive beneath his chest, and the air in his lungs could set his heart ablaze any second. I covered my ears with both hands and buried my face in my knees, trying to shut out his private mourning, his empty wails. _Stop, stop, stop, stop…._

If only I could help him. _If only._

\-----------

When I woke up, the apartment was silence once again.  
I sat up and stretched. My back let out a objective crack. Ouch.  
I slowly got to my feet. _Ok, you got this, let’s start being useful and productive…._

A wave of dizziness struck me like a brick in my face and I blacked out again.

I clumsily reached for the door handle of the fridge and leaned on the door to steady myself.  
“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath: “Fuck, Fuck, Fuck….”  
_Get your shit together._ I shook my head and took a deep breath.  
_You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine…._

Shit, I might not be. 

I pushed myself away from the fridge and started looking for the first-aid kit. Time for a quick self-operated health check. 

Maybe I was over-reacting, but you just never know. Better safe than sorry, that’s my motto.

I found the kit behind the trashcan– _What the fuck was that man’s problem? Behind a trashcan? What the fu_ – and fished out the ear thermometer. I took my temperature.  
96.8°F.  
I exhaled. 

I walked back to the fridge, opened the door and pressed my aching jaw to the cold surface. Oh, that felt good. I made a mental note to stop by a 7-11 and get an icepack on my way home.

I shut the door and looked around the kitchen. Still next to empty.  
At least he was keeping it nice and tidy. Didn’t expect that from him.  
Well, let’s see what we got here. I walked over to the sink, reached up and checked inside the cabinet. 

Some apples, half a roll of butter biscuit, a baguette poorly-wrapped in a kitchen towel– _Seriously?_ –and a bottle of Cognac. 

I pinched the bridge of my nose. I would need to have a word with our errand boy. 

I pushed the mess aside and reached into the back of the cabinet. Strange, I clearly recalled that I left it here 5 years ago…. Hold the fuck up. I felt around the suspicious warmth in the darkness above.  
My finger sank into a ball of fur. Aha. I stood on tiptoe and peeked inside.

Two small black eyes like shimmering glass beads stared right back at me, and I found myself being face-to-face with a ridiculously over-sized rat.

I signed. Well, this was new. “Welcome to my humble abode,” I muttered. It backed away, clutching tighter on the small metal box between its paws. “Yeah, thanks for keeping it safe for me,” I tapped impatiently on the wood in front of it: “Now give it back.” 

I was talking to a rat in the kitchen at 4 in the morning, with a living breathing stack of 20M$ cash sleeping in my bed just a few steps away; not to mention the fact that the latter nearly blew my brains out just 5 hours ago and now I was making breakfast for both of us, and the breakfast I was planning to make was two cups of expired green tea….Did I mention that I was talking to a rat?  
Maybe I’d officially lost my mind.

“Enough,” I hissed at my unexpected guest and reached out to grab it. It let out an ugly squeal and snapped at my hand. Ouch. I pulled it down from the cabinet along with the box of tea leaves. 

We glared at each other. 

“Alright,” I plucked the box out of its grip, “What’s the old man been feeding you? Look at this–”I poked it lightly on its soft belly, triggering a loud squeak of protest.

I looked back to the cabinet. 

Yep. Those right there on the towel-wrapped baguette looked suspiciously like bite marks. “Fine, fine,” I slowly set it down on the countertop, “Off you go, chubby.” I took the baguette and ripped off a large chunk: “Here. Keep yourself occupied while I work.”

I was definitely losing my mind. 

I signed and put the kettle on.

I was pouring the tea into our mugs when he woke up. Perfect timing.  
I jumped a little at the click-clacks the gun made under his grip.  
“Bad dreams?” I called over my shoulder before he starts shooting at the kitchen.  
The tea didn’t look so bad. I dumped the rest of the biscuits onto a plate and set everything on a plastic tray.  
Ok, that actually looked like some breakfast.

Who was I kidding. It looked like shit.

I picked up the tray and turned away from the sink. The rat dropped the remaining bits of bread and attempt to followed me, resulting in it nearly falling off the countertop. Right. It was definitely too fat for being athletic. I took the rest of the baguette and handed it to my new partner in crime. “You hold your food yourself. Don’t drop it,”I whispered. I picked it up by the neck and put it on the tray.  
It started gnawing on the bread again.  
I walked into the living room, taking the tray with me. The rat looked up at me for a brief second then went back to stuffing its face. 

John Wick slowly sat up on the bed. He greeted me with his puffy red eyes. 

Crap, I really didn't know how to talk to people when they were like this.  
“So,” I cleared my throat: “Bad dreams?” 

He rubbed his eyes, looking bothered.

“Did I said something?” His voice was rough and cutting around the edges, like crude sea salt. I wonder if it was because of the crying. Or the dream. 

Probably both. 

“It wasn’t exactly something you said,” I walked towards the bed: “It was your knocking me down with an uppercut, pinning me to the floor and holding a gun to my head when I tried to wake you up. Scoot over.”He widened his eyes, not sure whether I was pulling his legs. 

I raised an eyebrow at him. 

Hesitantly, he bent his knees to make some room for me. I sat down cross-legged on the other end of the bed and set the tray down between us.  
“Oh, and you were crying the whole time. Like. Soundlessly. It was extremely unsettling, which was the reason why I tried to wake you up in the first place.” I picked up my mug. “Looking back now, it probably wasn’t such a great idea.”

I sipped my tea, relishing the liquid warmth and the horrified look on his face. Hell, I was a terrible person.

The tea, on the other hand…. Well, wasn’t so bad. I took another sip.  
The rat had gobbled down one-third of the bread by now.  
If John Wick had noticed our fuzzy companion on the tray just next to his mug, he didn’t mention a thing. He just continued to stare at his kneecaps while violently rubbing his eyes with both eyes open like he actually wanted them gone.

Ok, now I was remotely concerned. If he kept rubbing those eyes,there’s a high possibility that his retinas would dissolve, and I wasn’t exactly an expert in dealing with dissolved retinas. What’s a retina anyway? What does it do? Is it important? I wondered. Well, important or not, I imagined it would at least be terribly painful if you just rip out a part of your eyes like that.

“That’s bad for your eyesight you know,” I pointed out helpfully.

He stopped and looked at me. His eyes immediately landed on my bruised jaw and the swollen scratches on my throat. 

He opened his mouth.

Don’t say it, don’t say it….. 

“Did I hurt you?” He said, in a soft and gentle tone different from his usual emotionless deadpan, a tone you’d specially reserve for day-old puppies. Day-old puppies that slam their own heads on the metal bars of their cage repeatedly because they’re fucking stupid and because they’re, well, day-old puppies.

Dammit.

 _Of course,_ I thought , bitterly, _Sure._ Of course I was hurt. Did the man think I faint at the sight of blood too? Oh, how _dare_ him put his big rough hands on me, a naive, defenseless child that had never experienced mild physical violence my entire life–wait, yes, I was a defenseless child alright, but that wasn’t the _point_ –

Great. Now not only did I talk to rats, I also just started to argue– _have meaningless and passive aggressive conversations_ – with myself. In my head. Well, guess you can say that it’s never too late to discover a hidden talent. 

You know what? On second thought, take me to the hospital right now. I was emotionally compromised, I might have to lie down for a month to recover.

I inhaled and tightened my grip on the mug. 19-year-old and weighed less than 110 lbs, I was still a trained assassin, an expert hitman. I had my pride. 

However, throwing a cup of hot tea at John Wick when he had a gun within his arm’s reach would be a foolish and regrettable decision. 

I brought the mug to my lips and took another sip before I did anything stupid. Atlas Greene, the master of self-control.

“Yes,” I swallowed the tea and glared at him: “You shot me in the head and blew my brains out, killing me immediately. Then I got up and made tea. What do you think, hotshot?” I sighed. “You’re not that hard to handle when you’re asleep, you know.”  
He could crush me like a bug in his sleep, but he didn’t have to know that.

He sat back and gave me a wearied look. 

That was actually really unfair: He’d only just woken up from a beauty sleep, and I’d just spent about 15 minutes in the kitchen making tea and talking to a rat. He didn’t get to pull out that too-tired-for-your-shit card, not today. 

Speaking of which, the rat had slowed down with its baguette. It was now nibbling on the crust lazily, half-sitting on the tray, relaxed. Good for it. Always happy to help a fellow rodent find itself.

“How did I get back to the bed?” He asked, puzzled.

Huh. So this didn't just happen everyday. I wondered if this incident had anything to do with me having him cooped up in a small trashy apartment for two weeks. “Uh, you got back yourself. It was impressive. I was worried that you might trip and hurt yourself.” 

The rat put down its baguette and sniffed the biscuits. I nudged it away from the plate with my knuckles. _Stay in ya lane, buddy._ It reluctantly picked up the bread again and went back to nibbling.

The chances were thin, but Wick probably still hadn’t realized what that grey ball of fat and fur casually inhaling his leftover breakfast actually was. I wondered if he was musophobic. I should probably point it out for him, gently, carefully, before he starts shrieking and falls off the bed–or _should I?_ \- and while I was weighing my choices, the rat had already started to take an interest in John’s mug. Oh boy. I watched in passive amusement and mild concern. Concerned that it might start gnawing on the ceramic and break its teeth.  
“You should drink your tea,” I gestured to the tray, “It’s getting cold.”  
He looked down at the plastic tray. The rat stopped what it was doing and lifted its head, staring right back at him. 

Ah, a bonding moment. 

Now he definitely noticed it.  
_Hey John, Say hello to my little friend._  
I braced myself for an ear-piercing scream. In 3, 2, 1….

…. Nothing.  
Shame.

He slowly reached out, yanked his mug away and gave me another even more wearied look.  
“You do know that it's eating my dinner, right?” He eyed the rat nonchalantly.

That was his dinner. He was…. He was having baguettes for dinner. I don't get middle-aged people. I don't get them at all.  
I shrugged and took another sip of my tea. “Finders keepers.” 

He still hadn’t touched his tea. Was something wrong?

Well, judging from what I just witnessed a couple of hours ago, I was at least certain that getting locked up here alone had some negative effect on his mental health. Or just his health in general.

I put my mug back on the tray, nearly knocking the rat on its head.

“John, uh….”– Ok, did I mention that I was the absolute worst when it came to things like this?– “.... Does this, uh, sleepwalking thing, happen often?” Or do you just recently start murdering people in your sleep after I left you to rot in this shithole two weeks ago?

“Sorry to interrupt, kid,” He said abruptly, “But do you mind getting rid of that? It’s kind of distracting.” He pointed to the rat, which was now trying its luck on the plastic tray, leaving messy bite marks everywhere.  
“You don’t look very distracted,” I commented. “And I think you hurt its feelings on purpose. It takes three to, you know, have classy tea parties. I guess you don’t have the decency to enjoy it.”  
I seized the rat and put it down on the ground. It looked up at me, clearly not planning to leave just yet.  
Really? How much could this guy eat? I took a biscuit and tossed it to the rat. _To our short-lived friendship, fella. Hope you lose some weight and don’t die of myocardial infarction._

“Ok,” I turned my attention back to Wick. “So, this sleepwalking thing. This is some serious issue.” I had no idea why I said that. Dammit, be subtle, be subtle…. “Do you have some mental problems that I don’t know about?”  
Fantastic. That was some real subtlety right there. Hey John, are you crazy? Should I cuff you and chain you to the bed for, you know, _your own safety?_

“No,” He blinked, surprised–or probably offended–by where this conversation was heading. “No, I don’t.”  
I nodded awkwardly. Ok, he wasn’t insane. Not, like, medically.  
What next?  
“Uh,” I swallowed and gestured aimlessly with my hands, “Are you, maybe, uh, claustrophobic? Or just, you know, bored? If you want anything, you can just write it down for our errand boy to pick up, you know. Books, music, uh…. I don’t really know what people your age like, but I’m sure–”  
“Kid.” He cut me off, his tone patient but cold.  
I shut my mouth with a click.  
“I’m fine.”  
“Oh,” Yeah, of course. Of course he was fine.  
Seriously, what did I expect?  
“Well, if there’s anything I can do for you–anything at all–” Was I sounding desperate? Yeah, I was definitely sounding desperate.  
He raised an eyebrow.  
“You said,” He stroked his chin, “Anything?”  
He actually looked like he was considering it.  
Shit, it worked. “Yes,” I tried to give him my reassuring smile. Damn, I was good at this. “Anything?” His voice went deeper, almost like a growl.  
“Anything.” I nodded expectantly. What's with these so-called professionals in the Big League and their trust issues? If I had to repeat everything I said for three times to make him believe me, this was definitely not going to work.

“There’s this one thing,” he leaned in suddenly and looked me in the eyes.

If he was trying to look intimidating, it absolutely did not work, not when his eyes were still puffy and covered with burst veins. 

“If you just tell me who the fuck is holding your marker and what the fuck he wants from me, I’m sure that I will sleep better at night. Guaranteed.”

Really? 

Really. Again, remind me what the actual fuck did I expect?  
Well, he could go to hell. Go cry into your pillow for another two weeks, tough guy, and see if I have anymore shit to give. 

I sat back and crossed my arms. 

“No,” I said, trying to sound as cold as I could manage: “I suggest you stop trying to get an answer concerning this issue. You won’t get one. Not from me. All you need to know is that I am, in fact, planning on keeping you alive, and I will keep you alive, if you do what I say and stop asking irrelevant questions.” I picked up a biscuit and bit down, for dramatic effect: “This conversation ends now.” 

He blinked.

“Ok,” He muttered. I stifled a laugh. The legendary Baba Yaga actually looked like a scolded child right now. I suppressed the urge to reach over and tousle his hair.  
“Now drink your tea,” I put on my best mom voice, “It’s good for your, uh, brain. Prevents Alzheimer's.”

He looked down at his mug. He looked up at me again.  
Ok, the tea leaves might’ve expired for a year or two, but he didn’t have to be a dick about it. How did he know about that anyway?  
“Uh, John….” He held up a hand. _Let me talk._

I closed my mouth.

“Look, kid….” He inhaled and looked me in the eyes: “I’m sorry. About…. You know. Your face.”

“Oh,” I tried to squeeze out a smile: “Thanks. I appreciate that. I’m sorry about my face sometimes, too. But there’s not much I can do about it. Heard it’s a genetic thing.”  
He threw me an irritated look. 

Jesus, they really had no sense of humor.

“You know what I mean,” he said, his voice tight: “This…. This thing, it won’t happen again.”  
Yeah, it better not.  
“You should drink your tea,” I said, for the hundredth time this morning, “It’s getting cold.”  
He didn’t move.  
You know what? Fuck this. I shrugged and downed the rest of my tea. He wasn’t a child anymore and I wasn’t going to repeat every fucking thing for him until he does what I say.  
I put the mug down on the tray.  
He was silent.  
He was staring at my hand. Or more specifically, at the bandage on my forearm. Oh boy.  
“Is that….”  
Oh, spare me.  
“No,” I cut him off, impatient, “It’s not. It’s from a job. Bloody hell, will you just relax and drink your fucking tea already. I said I’m fine.”  
He looked down to his mug again. _Yeah, that’s still a cup of tea. If you’d drank it 10 minutes ago, it would’ve been a cup of hot tea._  
He sighed and raised the mug to his lips. _Good. Now drink._  
He took a sip. _Good boy._ See? What the hell was so difficult?  
I shoved another biscuit in my mouth. 

For a while, neither of us said anything. We just sat there, eating and drinking in silence. 

The scary thing was, it actually felt kind of nice. Being with another human, I mean. If I could stop thinking about how said human had a 20 million price tag on his head, and how he actually just attempted to murder me–and nearly succeeded in doing so–a couple of hours ago.

He finished his tea and put the mug down on the tray.  
He looked up at me.  
_Let’s get started._  
“How’s everything?”  
Alright, there went my pleasant mood. I flicked the crumbs off the corner of my mouth. 

_Oh, my friend, you’re not ready for this._

“Good news or bad news?”

“Try me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, ok, I know that it's been a while since I last update and this chapter is, at best, meaningless--- like nothing really happened, right----but I promise that it'll all make sense in the end. So stay with me, my two existing readers.  
> And please don't ask about the rat. I have absolutely no idea what I was doing, I guess I just really like rats


	8. Golden Delicious

He dreamed of Helen. They were fighting.  
“I’ve had enough,” She cried: “I love you, John, I love you so much. But I’ve had enough.”  
He didn’t know which she was referring to, the killing, the getting hurt and hiding blood-stained shirts from her, the never coming home for dinner, or the watching him leave in the morning every day fearing that their goodbye wasn’t enough, not for a last one. 

Or just loving him.

Or it was something else, something he forgot. Something he didn’t dare to look at, not even in his own dream, where he could crumple the world with a single thought.

He didn’t know what to do. He felt so small in front of her, small and helpless. 

Just like that afternoon when she was diagnosed.

“I love you too,” He whispered, finally, if pathetically.  
“If you love me, stop.”  
He didn’t say anything. He just held her in his arms, doing nothing, wishing for everything, and he held on.  
_If only this could last,_ he buried his face in her hair, _If only._

But he already knew how this story ends.

He held onto her, tighter, when she died in his arms, again; and he kept holding on when her lifeless corpse crumbled to ash, then to dust. 

Then he was alone.

He stood there in the dark, the sweetness of her perfume lingered in the cold night air.  
He felt lost.  
He realized that he wasn’t ready to let go. He wasn’t ready for the ending, the ending that he witnessed and lived for a hundred lifetimes in a hundred dreams–

_Plip._

A sound, a familiar yet alien sound, ripped apart the silence around him.

_Plop, plop, plip…._

He felt lukewarm water soaking through his shirt, his hair. In the distance, thunders.  
It was raining, he thought.  
He was no longer at home. No longer with Helen.  
He held out a hand.  
_Plip._ A drop of rain landed in his palm.

But it was no rain.

He stared at the crimson stain on his outstretched hand. It slowly spread and blossomed, swallowing the pale flesh underneath.  
Then he looked down.  
He was drenched in blood, fresh, warm blood, every last inch of him. 

It was still raining. 

This place was flooding, he thought.  
And it was.  
The blood had risen to the level of his ankles, and it rained on. Soon he would be consumed by this ocean of the damned, and he would die. He would die dreaming. But this was his dream, and he was not afraid.

He closed his eyes and waited. 

He felt something on his shoulder. A comforting hand. A child’s hand. He reached for it, to cover it with his own, or to held on to it like a drowning man would a rope.

The thing that met his desperate fingers was no human skin.

Slowly, he turned around.

He stared into those eyes, the eyes harder than stone and colder than steel, the eyes that saw through the depth of his heart and the weight of his loss. The eyes of a reptile.

 _This was wrong_ , he thought, as he reached out and closed his fingers around its burning throat, feeling the smooth, translucent scales crack and flayed under his grip; there was something beneath them, a blazing flame, a breath of life, and he crushed it, every last drop of it, it was easy, _it was so easy_ –

He woke to the sound of teacups clattering in the kitchen. He tensed, subconsciously tightening his grip on the gun.  
“Bad dreams?” A familiar voice rose from the sink. He exhaled and lay back.

She came. 

There was a sound in his head, an empty, static noise, drumming lazily against his skull. _Something’s wrong_ , he thought. He rubbed his temple, feeling his migraine slowly worsening. 

Had to be those god damned dreams.

“So,” A voice cut into the thick haze enveloping his mind, “Bad dreams?”  
He raised his head.  
The kid ambled into the living room, carrying a plastic tray. 

“Did I say something?” He pressed a hand to his aching eyes. How was it possible that he slept nine hours per day and still felt exhausted?  
“It wasn’t exactly something you said,” She walked towards him, “It was your knocking me down with an uppercut, pinning me to the ground and holding a gun to my head when I tried to wake you up. Scoot over.”

His heart sank.

 _No, no, no…._ He covered his eyes with both hands. _This isn’t real. It couldn’t be._

The kid sat down on the opposite end of the bed. The bed squeaked softly under the added pressure. 

_Go away._

_You aren’t real._

“Oh, and you were crying the whole time. Like, soundlessly. It was extremely unsettling, which was the reason why I tried to wake you up in the first place.” She picked up a mug from the tray, “Looking back now, it probably wasn’t such a great idea.”

He tried to focus on something less vile–like, for instance, the ridiculously fat rat sitting in the middle of the tray, munching enthusiastically on his leftover dinner–to avoid the hideous thought that he almost killed a child in his sleep.

It wasn’t working. 

He brought his hand up to his face again and pressed down on his eyes. _It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me._

“That’s bad for your eyesight you know,” The kid said, a bit too cheerfully.  
He put down his hands.  
He looked at her, _really_ looked at her, for the first time after she came back: She looked even older, but younger, too, somehow. Her heart-shaped face now look more stoned than elfin, and he could tell that she was battered from the way she kept blinking and struggled to stay awake. The blood stains on her turquoise blouse had already dried up, and she didn’t bother to wash it: she knew that it was too late. They would never come off.  
He noticed that her mug-holding hand kept twitching. Probably an old injury that only came into effect when she finally got to relax and wasn’t fighting for her life. 

He didn’t have to ask to know that she went through some seriously fucked-up shit during her two-week absence.

Suddenly, it dawned on him that this was what their life looked like. Every single one of them. This was what his life had been, once, before Helen. 

He looked away.  
Seeing himself in this kid, it was too much.  
She drank her tea in silence.  
Once again, he had no idea what he should do.  
Maybe he should say something.  
“Did I hurt you?” He blurted out, then immediately regretted it. 

Of course he hurt her. She said that he punched her. 

He could see the wide bruise on her jaw, the hideous, swollen yellow blotch that would turn purple in a couple of hours. He could see the fresh pink scratches on her throat, and he already noticed that her voice was more ragged than usual.

He’d tried to choke her.

“Yes,” the kid tossed him an odd look: “You shot me in the head and blew my brains out, killing me immediately. Then I got up and made tea. What do you think, hotshot?” She sighed, irritated. “You’re not that hard to handle when you’re asleep, you know.”She sipped her tea.

He wondered if she would still be so fond of that cup of tea if she knew that there was a rat sitting right next to it. How did she not notice that?

He thought of something else.  
“How did I get back to the bed?” She couldn’t have carried him, could she?  
The kid glanced at him.  
“You got back yourself. It was impressive. I was worried that you might trip and hurt yourself.”  
He got back himself?  
Well, for someone who sleepwalked for the first time, he wasn’t so bad.

The rat was now sniffing the biscuits, its tiny claws grasping on the rim of the plate. He watched in silent horror as it accidently collided with her hand. She still didn’t notice.  
Maybe he should warn the kid about the rat first. She didn’t look the squeamish type, but you just never know.  
He opened his mouth. _Look, kid, about your tea–_  
“You should drink your tea,” she waved at the tray theatrically, a big smile on her face, “It’s getting cold.”  
He looked down to the tray.  
She looked too.  
He braced himself for an ear-piercing scream. In 3, 2, 1….

….Nothing.  
_Thank God._

She looked up at him, grinning like a Cheshire cat. _Really? This is what kids nowadays keep as pet?_  
He did a mental eyeroll. _Teenagers._

“You do know that it’s eating my dinner, right?” He moved his mug away from the rodent.  
She didn’t even look remotely guilty. “Finders keepers.”  
_Whatever._

If she thought he was going to touch that tea, she was dead wrong.

“John?” The kid called. He looked up at her. “Does this, uh, sleepwalking thing, happen often?”  
The rat ripped off a piece of the black plastic tray and chewed loudly on it. _Seriously?_  
“Sorry to interrupt, kid,” He said carefully, not wanting to piss her off–he had at least a vague idea how easily provoked the kids her age were– “But do you mind getting rid of that? It’s kind of distracting.” He pointed to the rat, all the more carefully, not wanting to get bitten.  
She blinked.  
“You don’t look very distracted,” she pointed out, “And I think you hurt its feelings on purpose. It takes three to, you know, have classy tea parties. I guess you don’t have the decency to enjoy it.” She seized the rat and put it on the ground. Finally.  
He thought about asking her about English and their so-called “classy tea parties”, but thought better of it since he had no idea if it was considered racist.

“So, this sleepwalking thing. This is some serious issue.” She started again. _You don’t say._  
“Do you have some mental problems that I don’t know about?”  
He stared at her.  
_Why are you doing this?_  
“No,” He frowned, “No, I don’t.”  
She swallowed and looked down. “Ok,” She nodded slowly.  
He noticed that the kid was getting increasingly nervous. Maybe she was afraid that he would suddenly snap and lunge forward to rip her throat out.  
“Are you, maybe, uh, claustrophobic? Or just, you know, bored? If you want anything, you can just write it down for our errand boy to pick up, you know. Books, music, uh…. I don’t really know what people your age like, but I’m sure–”  
He almost felt bad for her.  
“Kid.” He cut her off, trying to sound as gentle as he could: “I’m fine.”

She blinked. 

He mentally slapped himself.  
He sounded like a cold bastard.  
“Well,” She continued, her tone careful but uncertain: “If there’s anything I can do for you–anything at all–”  
He studied her face.  
She wasn’t afraid.

She was _worried._

And he was buying none of that.  
_You want to play this game? I’ll play it with you._  
_I’ll play it my way._  
“You said,” He stroked his chin, “Anything?”  
“Yes,” She nodded eagerly. She tried to smile reassuringly at him, too, but failed miserably.  
“Anything?” He demanded.  
“Anything.” She looked so hopeful and he almost laughed.  
“There’s this one thing,” He leaned into her, slowly, surely, with a predatory focus.  
She looked into his eyes, waiting. She didn’t pull away.  
He was right.  
She wasn’t scared of him.

“If you just tell me who the fuck is holding your marker and what the fuck he wants from me, I’m sure that I will sleep better at night. Guaranteed.”

Her face hardened. The look in her eyes slowly returned to their usual coldness.

Probably a few degrees too cold. 

_Too far? Probably too far._  
He subconsciously recoiled.  
“No,” her voice no longer sounded like that of a child; it was that nonchalant, cutting tone he’d always used back in the days on a business deal. “I suggest you stop trying to get an answer concerning this issue. You won’t get one. Not from me. All you need to know is that I am, in fact, planning on keeping you alive, and I _will_ keep you alive, if you do what I say and stop asking irrelevant questions. This conversation ends now.”  
She picked up a biscuit and bit down on it.  
It only lasted a split second, but he saw her wince, a little, when she was chewing.  
It must be her jaw.  
Her jaw that he almost broke in half with a nasty punch. 

He mentally cursed at himself. He wasn’t going to win this round. Not today.

“Ok, “ He started, a bit clumsily. He thought about what he should say next. _Sorry about almost murdering you, kid, but the thing is I was sleepwalking so I couldn’t really…._  
Her voice interrupted his train of thoughts. “.... Drink your tea. It’s good for your brain. Prevents Alzheimer’s.”  
_Look, kid, I know I almost shot you, but if we’re going to prevent that from happening again, you should really just fucking tell me who is holding your_ –  
_No,_ He looked down to the mug and cursed at himself again, _Fucking idiot._  
You have to apologize. Just say it.  
“John–”  
He held up a hand. _Let me talk._  
She closed her mouth.  
“Look, kid…. I’m sorry. About, you know, your face.”  
_Nailed it._  
Now he just sounded like the biggest douchebag ever. 

Maybe he should finally accept that fact that he just didn’t possess the ability to be decent around any human being other than Helen. 

But Helen had stated repeatedly that he was the biggest douchebag she’d ever met, so maybe he was just…. Awful. Unfortunately.

“Oh, thanks. I appreciate that. I’m sorry about my face sometimes, too. But there’s not much I can do about it. Heard it’s a genetic thing.” She gave him a toothy grin, then winced when it reached her bruised jaw.  
He sighed. He had forgotten about how insufferable teenagers could be, sometimes.  
“You know what I mean. This…. Thing, it won’t happen again.” He looked her in the eyes, hoping that she could see that he was serious. 

She frowned at him.

“You should drink your tea,” She said, slowly, “It’s getting cold.”  
He stared at her.  
She shrugged and finished her tea.  
She put the mug back on the tray. He caught a glimpse of the underside of her forearm.  
It was neatly bandaged, but a thin line of red hue seeped out from beneath. The wound was fresh.  
His heart raced. Did he cut her? She didn’t say anything about knives.  
He looked up and caught her glaring at him. He swallowed. “Is that….”  
“No,” She cut him off, her tone impatient, “It’s from a job. Bloody hell, will you just relax and drink your fucking tea already. I said I’m fine.”  
He tore his eyes away from her.  
He looked down to the mug. Green tea. He hated green tea.  
He wrapped his hand around the mug. It was warm. Not scalding. He took a sip.

This felt wrong.

He’d put his life in the hands of a nineteen-year-old kid; not that she was incapable–that was still up for debate–but she was untrustworthy. If she’d lied, then she could be saving his death for herself, keeping him as an investment until the contract doubled again; if she’d told the truth, then he was in even greater danger–whoever was holding her marker would want something in return, and John wasn’t certain that he could pay his price. 

Santino’s incident already taught him a lesson about owing debts.

Either way, he was stuck; but the problem was, she didn’t have to do this. She could’ve just tied him up, stuck him in a cage and shoven a feeding tube down his throat; she didn’t have to give him a cozy apartment or hire a hobo to bring him food and fresh clothes.  
If he’d been a job, there were easier ways to do it; but there she was, making him tea and letting him hurt her, then shrugged it off like it was nothing. She was hiding something from him, and he had a feeling that he wouldn’t like it very much when he found out what it was. 

He looked back to the kid. She munched on the biscuits, seeming entirely unaffected by this awkward silence between them. 

For someone who ate like a starving hamster, she was definitely way too skinny.

Suppose he should let her finish the food before he begins. This job of hers was terribly physically draining, he would know. He waited patiently while sipping on his tea.  
The tea actually wasn’t so bad.  
She swallowed her last bite. At least she no longer looked like she was going to pass out.  
“How’s everything?” He asked casually. If he was trusting this girl with his life, he needed to know how she handled things.  
She sighed, flicking the crumbs off the corner of her mouth.  
“Good news or bad news?”  
“Try me.”  
She grimaced. “I’ll start with the good news. Your dog is fine. He’s asleep when I went out so I didn’t bring him.” She glanced at him and added, “When this is over, you should take him to the central park sometimes. He likes it there.”  
He shut his eyes.  
When. She said _when._

She thought she could get him out of this. 

He was never getting out of this. Not after what happened. Not after what he’s done.

“John?” He felt her lean into him, “Are you there?” He opened his eyes. The kid was staring at him with her face only a few inches away from his, looking alarmed.  
He noticed the soft, golden speckles scattered across her sharp hazel eyes. He wondered why he was just seeing them now.

Perhaps he’d just never been close enough. 

“Yes,” He said dryly, “I should…. Take him there. I will.”

She sat back and smiled. “You better.”  
“Anything else?”  
She scoffed. “Good news? No. I said your dog is fine. Do you need anything else?”  
She had a point.  
“Ok.” She sat up straighter, “Here comes the bad news.”  
He braced himself. 

“It’s twenty million now.”

His blood ran cold.

20 million for an exile.

That must’ve been some kind of a record.  
But again, they didn’t get many exiles these days, let alone one that lasted over a week.

He steadied his breathing and put on a blank expression that could only be described as stone-like nonchalance: “Anything else?”  
She glared at him. “Are you serious,” She narrowed her eyes, “Are you–serious.”  
He looked back at her, entirely unamused. Of course he was serious. He was the one with a price tag on his head, how dare she.

“Do you even understand what twenty million means? With a capital ‘T’ and an italic _‘m’_?” She demanded. 

“It’s a number, yes,” He replied, impatient. What did she expect him to do? Get up and run around the room screaming his head off?

“And?” She raised her eyebrow. “And….” He shrugged, “It’s…. Bad?”  
“Let me rephrase that for you,” She leaned in suddenly, locked her eyes with his, and put her hands on his knees: “Son, you’re fucked.”

He gave her a blank look.

“Can I ask you an irrelevant question?”

“You just did.”

 _Ha-ha. Real funny._  
“Why are your hands on my knees?”  
She blinked. He raised an eyebrow at her.  
She pulled away and gaped at him.  
“You’re serious.”  
“Is that a question?”  
“You’ve never seen that movie.”  
He shrugged.  
She had a look of disbelief on her face.  
“Constantine 2005? You’ve never seen it?”  
He shook his head, unsure where this conversation was going.  
“How dare you,” She accused, “It’s a classic. The lead actor–what’s his name again–nevermind, no one cares about the guy. But the actress playing me was on point.”

“She played a fractious teenager with murderous tendencies and severe God complex?”

She gave him a flat look. “No,” She explained, “She played the archangel Gabriel, you idiot. And I’m going to pretend that I didn’t hear a word of what you just said so we can sustain our fragile, newly-established friendship. All is forgiven and you’re very welcome.”

 _Teenagers are such strange creatures_ , he marveled.

She looked back at him and sighed.  
“We’re off topic and it’s your fault,” The kid started again, “Now let’s talk about that twenty million. At the speed this is going, it’ll double again by the end of the month, you do know that? Good. And you do know that it won’t be long until they start handing out those ‘Have you seen this guy’ posters? And when that happens I’ll have to kill our delivery guy and possibly every living breathing soul in this city who tries to kidnap your dog? And you do know that they’ve been bribing cops ever since Winston kicked you out? And that if any of them sees you on the streets he’ll shoot you on spot? Or that the Bowery King has sent out his men for you so basically the whole of New York is now on your ass? And the airport is not an option because basically everyone working in the airports—even the sniffer dogs— has been bribed since day one? You think you know everything, don’t you?”  
She stopped to catch her breath, and John took a break, too, from nodding his head non-stop like an idiot.

“Is there a reason you’re giving me this very educational speech?” He asked, only to receive a theatrical eyeroll. It was impressive, if he was to be honest; her eyes turned entirely into the back of her sockets, like in those low-budgeted exorcism movies. He guessed he had that effect on people. 

“My point is,” She said, slowly, “This world isn’t safe for you anymore, John.” 

He shrugged. “It never was.”  
She fell silent. 

He wondered if she saw herself in him too; he knew that she was running from something when she got in, 13-year-old and all by herself.  
The world hadn’t shown much mercy to her, either.

He cleared his throat. “So how’s that plan of yours working out?”  
She looked up at him.  
“What?”  
“You said you did a little showing off. Did they buy it?”

She grinned, flashing him a sight of her sharp teeth. 

“You think I’d bother taking your dog out to a bloody park if I weren’t sure it would work? Of course they bought it.” 

He raised an eyebrow. “Why were you so sure about that?”  
She eyed him for a moment.  
“Ok,” She sat up straighter, “I shall lay down my pride and offer you a glimpse of my blinding intellect to save you from your own ignorance.”  
“Please do,” He said flatly, “It sounds like no simple feat.”  
“And I’m not doing this because we’re friends or something,” She stressed, “I’m educating you because you’re going to need this information at some point in your life, and because I’m a good person who likes helping ignorant people.” 

“Trust me,” He looked her dead in her eyes, “I get that.”

“Well then,” She cleared her throat. “Tell me, John, where would you say is the best place to hide a dead body?”  
He shrugged.  
“No where. Just call Charlie and make a dinner reservation.”  
Another dramatic eyeroll. “Please just pretend that the system doesn’t exist,” She said, “Where will you hide a dead body?”

He thought about that for a moment. 

“The cemetery?” He said, hesitantly.  
“No, you moron,” She shook her head, “You put the body in your backpack and carry it with you. People will ask, ‘Hey, what's in there?’ And you tell them, ‘It's a dead body, sir.’ Just like that. Right to their face. And they'll laugh. They'll laugh and they won't believe you. That's what people do. You offer them a glimpse of the truth and they still force themselves to choose from a pile of lies something to believe in. Kind of pathetic if I’m to be honest.”  
He stared at her, transfixed.  
She sat back, waiting for his comment.  
“That’s not going to work,” He said, finally.  
She frowned. “What’s not going to work?”  
“Hiding a dead body in your backpack,” He explained patiently, “The fluid would get everywhere and the smell would be too obvious.”  
She gaped at him.  
“You people really have no sense of humor, do you?”  
“Was that a joke?” He asked, puzzled.  
“No,” She sighed, defeated, “It was a metaphor.”  
“For what? Me?” 

The fact that the kid was low-key comparing him to a dead corpse was, somehow, mildly alarming.

“You? You wish. I wouldn’t bother carrying you in a backpack, dead or alive. If I actually did it, you’d just stick your head out and yell at anyone passing us until we both got killed.”

He was deeply offended. She should give him more credit than that; after all he did manage to do what she said and keep his head down for two weeks without knowing a thing about her benefactor. Not that he was proud of it, but still.  
“How would I breathe in your backpack if I didn’t stick my head out?” He protested.  
“What did I say about irrelevant questions?” She eyed him nonchalantly, “Anyway. I wasn’t talking about you–I was talking about your dog.”  
“What about him?”  
“What about him?” The kid repeated, “Well, first thing first…. Does he have a name?”  
“No.”  
“Figured,” She nodded, “Well, he’s important. People see him, they see you. People see him with me, they start wondering, ‘Where’s John Wick? What happened to John Wick?’ But they don’t think for a second that I may be harboring you. Ask me why.”  
“Why?” He went with it.  
“Because they know I’m careful. They know I’m careful with jobs. Not many people know about me; I’m not exactly in that Hall of Fame, but those who do, they know this about me. They know that I’m careful, and keeping your dog on a leash to dangle him like a dead bird in front of a group of hyenas is far, far from careful. They see me fling myself into a fire, but they don’t know how I plan things before I step into the flames to make sure I can always find my ways out.”  
She paused. “I was using cringy pretentious metaphors, wasn't I? I apologize.”  
“No need,” He assured her, “It’s nice to know that you have words other than ‘moron’ and ‘idiot’ in your vocabulary. Please continue.”  
She rolled her eyes. “Anyway,” She carried on, “Before I decided to interrupt myself because I was talking pretentious bullshit, I was just getting to another reason why I won’t, in a million years, be their first suspect. Or any suspect on their list, regardless of the number. Which is, not so surprisingly, the relationship between us.”  
He gave her a flat look.  
“There is no relationship between us.”  
She snapped her fingers. “Exactly. Look who’s catching up. I have no possible associations with you. I got in a year before you got out and went under for a year after that, so there’s no possible ways that we might have histories together. And even if we were _friends_ —" Her face scrunched up into a look of disgust, “—It’s almost impossible to imagine that I would give up 20 million—or more—and risk my own safety just to keep a _friend_ alive. Unless—" She saw the look on his face and held up a hand; “Yes, yes, I’m getting there. Unless I’m, as you’ve suggested before, _making an investment._ Which I’m _not,_ thank you for your unshakable faith in my naturally faultless moral fibre. Let me tell you why no one would believe that I’m making an investment. The truth behind this is shockingly simple: Because you’re way out of my league. You’re _John Wick_ , for Christ sake. Do you actually think that they’ll believe me if I straight up tell them I knocked the Baba Yaga over his head and have him chained up in a dungeon? Not a chance. So. This plan won’t hold up forever, as you can see, but it’ll do for now, because it’s my plan and my plan is awesome. There.”

He almost slow-clapped. 

“Alright,” He shrugged, acting unimpressed, “How many…. Admirers?”

“Only four,” She didn't miss a beat, “All newbies. No one from anywhere near your level, or mine, for that matter. They planted tracking devices on me. Fancy. I’m trying really hard to pretend I haven’t noticed. They’re already giving up, I’m telling you. Those cunts. No skills, no brain, no patience. They should really just get out and get a day job.”  
“How did you get here?” He knew that she wouldn’t take the risk.  
She must’ve done something. 

“I told you,” She gave him a look, “They’re giving up. I meant it. They gave up literally after two weeks of nothing. I haven’t disabled the devices—that’ll alarm them, I’m not an idiot—and I just. Let them have their fun. Most of them aren’t even trying at this point. One of them followed me out tonight, though. But no worries, I roofied his drink.”  
He stared at her.

“You what?”

She shrugged. “Told you so. He isn’t even trying. He was supposed to be following me, and I ended up following him for a good distance into a local bar. I even chatted with him for a few minutes. Idiot didn’t even know it’s me–I just put up my hair and put on a different shade of lipstick and _BAM_ , suddenly he couldn’t recognize his target. And–”  
She held up a finger and reach into the back pocket of her jeans. “Here,” She opened her phone, tapped a few times and passed it over to him. “In case you’re still doubtful about me being here–I planted a little something on him, too.” He stared at the screen. It was the complete map of New York. There was a tiny red dot on it, and a green one.  
“He’s red, we’re green. He’s still where I dumped him. We’re safe for a good few hours.”  
He passed the phone back to her.  
“That’s….” _Clever. Impressive. Genious_. “....Not bad.” He finally found his voice.

“High praise from the legend himself,” She grinned. 

“Well,” He mentally grimaced at the usage of “legend”–he hated to put on air, even if it’s somebody else who put it on for him– “I said it isn’t bad. I didn’t say it’s perfect. These admirers of yours, how much do they know?”  
She snickered. “How much do they know? They don’t know shit. They’re following me because they think I keep your dog as a trophy or something, and this ‘showing off’ will eventually lead to my horrible and inescapable death. And while you’re busy putting a pencil in my ear–yes, I’ve heard, we’ve all heard, it was incredibly _disgusting_ –they can have a shot at you. That’s why. And they’re giving up because, well, according to the very reliable words on the streets, you’re kind of dead. No offense.”  
He studied her face.  
There was something she didn’t tell him.  
“You have help,” He stated, his voice cold, “Who was it?”  
Her eyes widened. _Gotcha._  
“What gave me away?” She asked, a bit sheepishly.  
“Nothing,” He shrugged, “Just a lucky guess. Who was it?”  
She sighed.  
“Winston.”  
He narrowed his eyes. _Winston._ How much did the kid know about the history between Winston and him? Probably more that he’d like.  
“How did you know you could trust him?” He demanded.  
“I didn’t,” She shrugged, “He owed me a debt.”  
He stared at her.  
“Bullshit.”  
She said nothing.  
“There’s this thing that you don’t get, kid,” He explained patiently, “Winston don’t _owe_ people. He takes something, he pays the price. He has a neutral stance that he needs to maintain.”  
“And this,” She deadpanned, “Is him paying me. And he’s not done paying yet. Stop asking.”  
“Why, is this an irrelevant question? It sounds terribly relevant to me. How could the head of the Continental owe you anything? What happened?”  
“It’s none of your concern, I assure you,” Her tone of voice was icy and controlled, “Just know that he owes me enough for me to get whatever help I need. In this case, help me keep you alive.”

“He broke his neutral stance,” He looked her in her eyes, “He’s breaking his own rules. There will be consequences.”

She shrugged.  
“Do I look like a have a fuck left to give? His consequences, his problems. He owes me, he pays until he stops owing me. Simple logic.”  
She collected their empty mugs onto the tray and set it aside. He suspected that she just needed something to do with her hands.  
He didn’t press further.  
“I almost forgot,” She looked up to him, her voice switched into a lighter tone: “How are your wounds?”  
He raised a hand to his abdomen. She’d done a great job on the stitches; he was recovering a lot faster than he normally would’ve been.  
“Healing just fine,” He replied.  
“Let me see.” She insisted, beckoning with a hand.  
He reluctantly lifted his shirt. She inspected the wound, pressing gently around the stitches, her finger still warm from holding the mug.  
“Alright,”she withdrew her hands, “You have to take a penicillin capsule every eight hours and change your bandages twice a day lest it get infected.”  
“Already doing that,” He replied flatly. She nodded. “Then keep up the good work. You’re getting rid of those stitches soon. And your leg?” She asked.  
“Likewise,” He prayed silently in his head that she wouldn’t ask him to pull down his pants and let her check.  
“Good,” She nodded and sat back. _Thank God._  
This little health check reminded him of something.  
“Kid.” He called.  
“What?”  
“You should…. You should get some ice for that,” He pointed to her jaw.  
Her bruises were getting worse.  
She gave him an odd look. For a second, she looked like she might snap again, and he braced himself.  
Then, much to his surprise, her face broke into a huge smile.  
“You’re different from what I imagined, you know,” She mused.  
“How so?” She would never know, but this was probably his least favorite conversation to have now. He had his reasons.  
“I don’t know,” She shrugged, “I thought you’d be…. How should I put it….”  
_Don’t say it, don’t say it…._  
“.... Scarier.”

She said it. 

_Dammit._  
“Sorry to disappoint,” He said dryly.  
“I accept your apology,” She said, climbing off the bed with the tray in her hand and went into the kitchen.  
“It’s your turn to do the dishes, by the way,” She called from the sink. “Well, since you’re at my place, it’s always your turn.”  
She walked back into the living room and started to collect her things. She flung her coat over her shoulders.  
“I will come back next Thursday and get you somewhere else. You can’t stay in one place for too long. In the meantime, just….” She paused and looked at him: “Try not to go insane.”  
“I won’t,” He said, his voice flat.  
“Well, you’re not all that convincing,” She crouched and checked the zip of her duffle bag, “I checked inside the cabinet. You’re eating _apples_ , for the love of God.”  
“What’s wrong with apples?” He asked, feeling defensive all the sudden.  
“Dude,” She looked at him pitifully, “You’re eating _Golden Delicious._ I know for a fact that only psychopaths or people with extreme cases of Munchausen syndrome eat Golden Delicious, and you know why? Because Golden Delicious are fucking _terrible_ , that’s why. For God sake, tell the guy to buy you some Granny Smiths instead, it’s not like I can’t afford it.”  
It actually didn’t make sense, since Granny Smiths were, in fact, a lot cheaper than Golden Delicious. But he kept his mouth shut anyway.  
She reached for her backpack, then stopped suddenly and gave him a meaningful look.  
“You know, John,” She said, “It actually does work.”  
“What?”  
“Keeping dead bodies, or in this case, body parts in your backpack. Just wipe off most of the fluids and seal off the wounds with duct tape. Better yet, torch the wounds a bit before you start. Works like magic. Wrap the parts in plastic wrap, at least for three layers. Then duct tape the whole thing. There, problem solved. No smell will be able to come out of that shit.”  
He stared at her, appalled.  
“Do I want to know what’s in your backpack right now?”  
“Trust me,” She grinned at him: “You don’t.”  
She threw her suspiciously heavy backpack onto her shoulder and started her way to the door.  
“Be careful, John,” She called without looking back: “And if I didn’t come on Thursday, I’m dead and you’re on your own.”

He watched her leave in silence.  
His heart pounded on his chest.  
_Stop her._  
He gritted his teeth.  
_You still have time._  
_Stop her before it’s too late._  
“Atlas?” He called. The shape of her name felt somehow difficult on his tongue, and he tasted something soft but bitter underneath it, something transparent and shining and blinding, like smoke, like summer lightning.  
_Atlas,_ He thought, _What a strange name._  
She stopped putting on her shoes and looked up at him. “Yes?”  
He inhaled. _Stop her_. “If they find out…. They’ll come for you, too, you know. All of them.”  
There was nothing a hitman wouldn’t do for 20 million. She was good, but in the end it was still a 19-year-old kid against the world. 

They would tear her into pieces. She didn’t stand a chance.

She looked at him for a good long moment. 

Slowly, her lips curled up into a smile.  
It wasn’t a nice one.

“Let them try,” She stood up and opened the door, “Let them try.”  
The slamming of the iron door rang in his head, long after she was gone.  
_It’s too late_ , He thought as he buried his face in his hands.  
_It’s too late._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: Well the last chapter fucking sucks so I'm going to step up my Game™ and start being serious with this chapter  
> Also me:*continues to write about rat in elaborated details* *breaks fourth wall* *makes inappropriate Constantine 2005 references*


	9. Welcome to the Jungle

“It will never work.”  
We were sitting on the decaying bench on the edge of a tiny park. It was too hot, I thought to myself. Sweat streamed from my forehead. The dog panted loudly next to me. 

We should’ve met up after sunset. 

He tossed another piece of bread to the pigeons, which attacked it in a vicious frenzy. Feathers flew, and the suddenly erupted high-pitch chatters sent the dog into a barking fit. 

I glared at him, baring the edge of my teeth. He cowered and lay down beside my foot.

Great. Now I was the bad guy.

It was unsettling, how he fed these poultries–well, they were well-fed enough and stupid enough to be considered poultries, according to me–every other person would’ve used bread crumbs, but _no_ , the head of the Continental wasn’t just _every other person._ He prefered throwing a whole slice of bread to these beaked monsters and watched them tear the food–and each other–into pieces while they dined. I suspected that he probably found it therapeutic. 

“Care to explain why?” I asked casually, but I was a second away from strangling him with the dog leash. Talking with him was exhausting–he already knew everything you wanted and needed to know before you voiced it, but you had to ask. Winston didn’t just volunteer informations. He held them captive and dangled them in front of your eyes like teasing a kid with bright-colored toys. 

This, I knew for a fact that he most definitely found therapeutic. 

“I couldn’t just make the whole city believe that a man is dead, could I? The price is higher than ever, allow me to remind you. Thirty million. A thirty million vanishes overnight and no one is getting paid? This world of ours will collapse, Athlyana. The system will crumple.”

I don’t fucking care about the system, I wanted to scream at his face: I care about my marker and that you fucking owe me and you should just shut up and do your job– But deep down, I knew that I did care. I knew that he was right, as he always had been.

We were nothing without the system. Without the rules. Without its comforting familiarity and the boundaries it set for us, we were all just monsters. Pitiful ones at best.

“Ok,” I swallowed, “What about the High Tables? Is there any possible ways we can convince them that he isn’t…. Worth all the troubles?”  
He laughed.  
Another exhausting thing about talking to Winston was that, when he laughed, you knew for an irritating certainty that he wasn’t laughing with you, he was laughing _at_ you.  
“The High Table has their own rules, kid, and they are, unfortunately, not under the influence of my power. This contract belongs to the High Table now, and they won’t be pulling it anywhere unless a body turns up.”  
“Then is there anything else you can do?” I said, allowing a hint of annoyance to slip into my tone of voice. 

_If you can’t help me, why the hell are you here?_

“Ah, yes,” He nodded, emptying the bakery bag onto the ground. The pigeons became a noisy, violent swarm of feathers and claws. The dog peered at me but didn’t dare to move.  
I gritted my teeth.  
“Which is?” I asked, biting down on the tail of each syllables.  
“I can lead them astray,” He wiped his hands on his trousers–a very uncharacteristic thing for a neat freak like him to do–and grinned at me. “Pick a country, Athlyana. Anywhere. I can make them believe that he’s snuck out of New York when no one was watching. It will be easier, because–”  
“–Because they’ve never watched.” I finished his sentence subconsciously. “They see, and they miss. They’re always missing things, people in this damned city. Something big, something small….” I stopped and looked to him. He wasn’t smiling, not anymore. He was looking intently at me, caging me with his stare, like a hawk. There was a strange light in his sunken eyes, and it was, somehow, more unbearable than the sun. I turned away.  
“It doesn’t matter. Not to them.” I finally finished my sentence. “It will be easier, yes. I think somewhere in the Eastern Europe will be fitting.”  
He chuckled softly. “Croatia?”  
“Croatia,” I nodded, grinning. “Sounds like somewhere he would go.”  
His eyes flashed, alarmed.

Shouldn’t have said that.  
I mentally slapped myself.

“Sounds like you two are getting along well,” He said light-heartedly, but his eyes screamed a warning. _Remember, child, rule number one in babysitting…._  
“No,” I deadpanned, “No. Just guessing.”  
I locked my eyes with his.  
_Don’t worry._  
I remember.  
He grinned. “Well then,” He tossed the empty paper bag onto the sidewalk and stood up, “Who’s hungry?”  
I looked down to the dog. 

If we walk home at this hour, both of us would get heat strokes. And I was, in fact, starving.

But I didn’t move. I looked up at him, raising an eyebrow.

“The food’s on me, ” He added.  
I beamed. “You know me well.”  
“I know everybody,” He put on his hat and started to walk away: “Let’s go, kid.”  
I jumped up from the bench, taking the dog with me.  
We trailed behind Winston, the three of us looking like a ludicrous, dysfunctional family on a road trip gone-wrong.  
“Where are we going?” I called behind him.  
“No clue,” He shouted without looking back, “What would you like to have?”

*

Turned out that Winston, in fact, did have something much more important to do than hanging out with a teenage freelancer and tormenting wild pigeons. He just didn’t feel like it was important enough for me to know beforehand. More specifically, not important enough for me to know before I suggested that we could always just go to McDonalds if he couldn’t decide, or before my absent-minded opinion resulted in him cancelling his dinner reservation for two–not that kind of dinner reservation, I was talking about one that includes fancy suits and expensive wine and shiny tables–to the most popular Michelin-Starred restaurant in New York right in front of a very much horrified little ol’ me.  
“I just didn’t think it was worth mentioning,” He explained, “It’s just a meeting. It isn’t that important. You want McDonald, we go to McDonald.”

The meeting that “wasn’t that important” was actually one with Adam Rodriguez, the man who was in charge of the production and the circulation of every available currencies in the business. He owned the entire thing himself–the only man in the USA who got so filthily rich without getting blood on his hands. He was a clean one, figuratively and literally speaking–the fact that he was now staring at the greasy table with a terrified look on his face perfectly demonstrated my point. 

“Did you bring the model?” Winston said in a cheerful manner while munching on his Big Mac, his appetite entirely unaffected by Adam’s unusual silence.  
I shoved another handful of fries into my mouth and washed it down with vanilla milkshake.  
“Yes, yes of course,” Adam jumped, startled. He handed his suitcase to me and I passed it over. The grease on my fingers seeped into the leather on top, creating dark stains.  
He winced.  
Winston opened the case with his equally filthy hands, and next to me, I heard Adam sucked in a breath through his perfect teeth.  
Poor man.  
He was definitely too old for this. He should really just retire to Florida and finally consider spending his hard-earned money on himself, like any rational sixty-year-old billionaire would. Unfortunately, a rational sixty-year-old in the business was apparently somewhere between unicorns and Loch Ness monsters on our list of “fictional cryptids that don’t fucking exist”.  
“This is a seven two one, I assume?” Winston said next to me. “An eight two zero,” Adam corrected.  
I really couldn’t care less, but this seat arrangement was painfully illogical; how come they were the ones having a meeting and I ended up sitting between them?  
“And the other one?”  
“A six one three,”  
They were talking about the percentage of precious metal contained in the coins. I suspected that Winston actually knew next to nothing about economy and how it worked–he rated the coins based on his own stupidly stubborn aesthetic. No wonder the business was withering.

We should just all be grateful that at least he didn't own the entirety of Wall Street.

Winston shut the suitcase with a click, leaving more grease stains on the surface.  
“The last one didn’t work out too well,” He commented while passing the suitcase back to me. Adam lunged forward and seized his case before I could get my hands on it. I shrugged, picked up a piece of fried chicken and bit down.  
Adam sat back a bit clumsily. “It didn’t work,” He explained, “Because there were too many deals on the market and outside the market in a span of six months–why there seemed to be a sudden increase in demands of dead people were beyond me–and because those god damned _children_ kept on passing them around like some freaking Halloween candies, I’m telling you, those little bastards….” He shook his head, then added quietly, “No offense.”  
It took me a minute to realize that he was talking to me. I swallowed my mouthful of chicken and looked up: “No offense taken,” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, “I don’t like Halloween candies either.”  
Winston cleared his throat. “Put these into circulation, I’ll give it a chance. If it didn’t work out, we could always take them back and start over.”

I rolled my eyes. This was how he ran a city? Unbelievable. 

Adam nodded, relieved. “Well then, I guess I should order something too,”  
He stood up, looking ridiculously out of place in his sharp black and white suit and polished shoes.  
I felt bad for him, all of a sudden.  
Winston wasn’t exactly casually-dressed either, but he had this thing going on with which he could wear nothing but his bathrobe and a pair of hibiscus print flip-flops to a five star restaurant and looked _belonged._ I’d seen him done it once, and the waitress didn’t even bat an eye.

Poor Adam, on the other hand, didn’t have that.

“Get me a large Coke and some onion rings,” I called after him. He turned around a bit clumsily, almost stepping on his own foot. “Oh, sure,” He nodded, “Do you want anything else, kid?” I shook my head and gave him a thumbs up.  
“Another Big Mac for me, please,” Winston said without looking up.  
Adam walked away stiffly.  
“Are you planning on feeding those onion rings to the dog, kid?”  
“Shut up.”

*

“How’s working?” Adam asked, poking at his salad with a plastic fork.  
“Uneventful,” I slurped my coke. His fork had a paper napkin wrapped tightly around it, like he was afraid that the plasticizer would somehow find its way under his neatly trimmed nails.

Adam sighed and put down his fork. 

“Time flies, you know,”He said in a dreamy tone of voice.  
“Here we fucking go again,” Winston muttered next to me.  
“That’s my line,” I hissed back to him.  
“I remember when she just got in, she was this tall- And she had this look on her face like she wanted to bite off everyone's head, you remember that Winston? And I thought, Jesus Christ, she looks _terrifying_ —”

“I'm still here, you know,”I reminded him, “I can hear you very clearly.”

“Sorry, kid. My bad. Must be my age catching up.” He shook his head and squinted at his large bottle of Perrier—I volunteered to go out and buy it for him since his diet didn't allow sugary drinks—“This tastes off,” he grabbed the bottle and gave it a gentle shook: “Does this taste off to you, kid?”  
“I wouldn’t know,” I said, licking ketchup off my fingers, “I’m on a no-sparkling-water diet. Why don’t you ask Winston?” I turned to Winston and gave him a meaningful look, “Winston is an expert in sparkling water, isn’t him?” I pressed, my voice half a hiss. He threw me a dirty look. 

Adam nodded, putting the bottle back onto the table with exaggerated carefulness. 

“Anyway,”He started again, “I must admit, I was a bit scared of her at first–she gave off that Texas Chainsaw massacre vibe–but she was an interesting one, right, Winston? She would sit there and start quoting Kafka out of nowhere–” He sat back, cleared his throat and waved a hand in the air theatrically: “— ‘I am in chains. _Don’t touch my chains’_ —They would argue that she most definitely didn’t understand a thing about Kafka, but I always knew that she did—”

“Trust me,” I said flatly, “I didn’t.”

Truth be told, I was vaguely impressed that he even knew about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise.

“And the next day it was Herodotus— ‘Of all men’s miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing’—You remember that, Winston?” He laughed out loud and looked to me, his eyes glassy: “And then she would look at us in disgust, like she _pitied_ us—and I thought, hell, I would be so _sad_ when she eventually dies—”  
“Thanks,” I deadpanned: “I appreciate that.”

He took another swig of his water.

I caught Winston’s hand creep towards the water bottle and turned to glare at him.  
“Stop it,” I hissed.  
He shrugged.  
“What? I didn’t do anything.”  
“How much did you give him?” I demanded.  
“Relax, Athlyana,” He threw me an irritated look: “I’m just topping up his drink.”  
“You’re topping it up with _Vodka_ ,” I whispered back to him, furious: “Jesus Christ, why would anyone bring Vodka to a McDonald in the first place? What the fuck is wrong with you?”  
“Like you would know if it’s Vodka or not,” He scoffed, irritated, “You can’t even drink, for God’s sake.”  
I snatched the smaller bottle from his hand and turned it around. There was a sticker in the front on which printed “FINLANDIA: Vodka of Finland.”  
“I can at least fucking _read_ ,” I hissed at him.  
“It’s fine, keep that. I have more. You want a new one?” He reached into his coat and pulled out another bottle.  
“I can’t go anywhere with you,” I replied flatly.

Adam slammed his bottle down onto the table. Heads turned. A waitress glanced at us, recognized Winston and paled. 

I buried my face in my hands.

“I do miss the good old days, though,” He slurred, “I mean, when you still had her as your—your herald—”  
“My messenger, you mean,” Winston opened another bottle of Vodka and took a swig.  
Oh boy.  
“Yes!” Adam snapped his fingers. “Messenger—that’s the word. That’s the word.”  
“I was no one’s messenger,” I said through gritted teeth, “I ran— _errands_. Occasionally.”  
They ignored me.  
“Your messenger,” He stated again, “Then they started calling her— _Gabriel_ —the messenger of _God_ —to flatter you, you remember that, Winston?” Adam emptied his water bottle, “And one day—Frederick—I think it was Frederick? I can’t remember— Winston, was it Frederick?—Frederick called her _‘Gabriella’_ –You remember that? And she had this look on her face— _murderous_ —”  
“Pretty sure it was you,” Winston gulped down his Vodka.  
“Was it? I can’t remember—”  
“Adam?” I interrupted him, my voice patient, “Would you like to use the restroom?”  
He squinted at me. “Oh my, child, you’re here. Welcome. Me and Winston were just talking about you, and what an _accomplished_ young lady you have grown into—”  
“Winston and I,” Winston corrected him. 

I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“Winston, would you be so kind as to accompany Mr. Rodriguez to the restroom?” I offered, my tone calm but unyielding.  
He sighed. “My pleasure,” He stood up, walked around the table and extended an arm to Adam: “Old friend, allow me.”

I waited until the staggering pair disappeared behind the restroom door, then squeezed my eyes shut and banged my head against the filthy table. Hard. The waitress who noticed Winston earlier tossed me a sympathetic look.

“I need a drink,” I said out loud to no one in particular.

Under our table, the pit bull whined.

*

“You _overreacted,_ ” He said absent-mindedly, “Please, Athlyana, the man was sixty-three, don’t you think he deserves to _relax_ once in awhile?”

It was half past nine at night. We were at the Continental’s Bar–finally returning to Winston’s natural habitat–and the place was as busy as usual. 

And as insufferable as usual.

Winston sipped his Martini, his eyes dazed but his voice steady and unsettlingly sober. 

“If I’ve not mistaken,” I replied flatly, “You're already seventy-five and you're always relaxing.”  
He chuckled and raised his glass at me: “It's my secret, Athlyana. My secret to a better life.”  
“A life better than mine, you meant to say,” I glared at my cherry coke.

“No life is better than another,” he said, his silvery voice glided across the muggy air between us: “There are only ever ones that are _better_ , and some that are _worse_. As for those in between–” He gazed into the strands of golden light filtered out by his Martini glass, “–We wander, we stray, but none of us can stay that way. Every story has an ending, Athlyana. We either evolve, or we fall and become something less.”

“But he did,” I said, half a nonchalant echo, half a desperate plea; and I hated myself in that moment, I truly did– the way I sounded whenever I spoke of him, like I was defenseless, like I was curious and stupid and young, so young, too young.  
“He did it. He stayed. He made a place for himself.” 

A _family_ , I wanted to say: _He had it. He had it all._

_What does that feel like? To…. Belong?_

“Who were you referring to? Your stray?” His eyes shone, and I knew that I’d fallen into whatever trap that I set up for myself.

Crawling out of it would be a bitch.

“My stray, yes,” I replied under my breath, the words dissolving into nothing under my unfaithful tongue. 

Winston stared at me, baffled, knowing, pitying, and some other things all at once. I felt like a bug before his gaze, like he could crush me with a blink of an eye if he wanted to.

“He made a false promise, child,” He leaned forward, his voice gone low, “One that he couldn’t afford to keep. You, of all people, should’ve known better than to romanticize his past and the things he lost, the things he gave up for _nothing_.” His voice was as calm and smooth as usual, but there was a hint of sadness underneath it, and I remembered, with a sudden clarity, that John Wick was once his friend, too. Someone he cared about, just not enough.  
He stroked the rim of his glass, gently moving it back and forth, back and forth.  
“He didn't make a place for himself, Athlyana,” his face softened, “He built a shiny, shimmering world of self-delusion and tried to live in it. That's all he's ever done: he tried, then he failed.”  
I knew exactly what he was trying to say.

_Learn from his mistakes, child. Don't fall for them._

_I won’t,_ I opened my mouth to say, _I won’t_ — “You don’t know him,” I said instead, blindly, stupidly, and my voice was so shockingly furious that I flinched, surprised by the violence coming from my own tongue.

“You don’t know what happened,” I continued. I couldn’t stop myself. “It wasn’t some– _God’s mysterious plan_ –or fate, destiny, _the ghosts of his past,_ whatever you called it, that took it all from him. It was _cancer_.”

There wasn’t a single shift in mood betrayed by the expressions on his face. He sat back, sipping his drink, his dark eyes gleaming with indifferent amusement.

He said nothing.

“You don’t know him,” I added, quietly, if pathetically, and in that instant I realized that I wasn’t talking to Winston. I was talking to myself.  
“You don’t know him.”

But he did. He did. I was the one who knew nothing about him. 

“I told you,” He finished his drink and put the glass down, “I know everybody. And I know you, Athlyana, I know you too well.”  
He reached across the table, not to touch my hand, but to expose me, to rip the invisible mask from my face; and underneath it, he saw me as I was. 

He saw inside me, and he saw that I was afraid. 

“You cannot win this,” He locked my eyes with his: “You cannot save him. You can only do what you do best: _Run._ Remember this, remember what I said tonight. You still have time, child. Run before it's too late.”  
He paused and looked down.

For a moment, neither of us said anything.

Quietly, or maybe hesitantly, he added: “You can still walk away. You’re not like him, Athlyana. Not yet.”

I took a deep breath.

Something red burned behind my eyes, and I wanted to pull out my knives. I wanted to show him, I wanted him to see what I see, feel what I feel. 

The dog nudged my ankle lightly, and I realized I was trembling. 

I took another deep breath.

_Not here. Not now._

“I will not fail,” I bit out my words; it sounded more like a threat than a promise, and we both heard, with unmistakable clarity, what I’d left unsaid.  
It just hanged there in the air, blinking, fading, like a broken, rusted neon sign.  
_I will not fail._

_Not this time._

“You owe me. You want him to live. Is this not the most favorable way to pay your debts, Winston? So _pay._ ” I leaned in and lowered my voice: “You wanted me to give you a month, now I’m telling you I’m willing to give you two. Pull your strings, and pull them as hard as you can. There is a limit to my generosity. Do not test me. Your tricks and your pretty words are getting stale now, _old friend._ ” I hissed at him.

We glared at each other.

Slowly, the corner of his mouth crept up into a lazy, predatory smile.

I blinked and retreated.  
The indignation died down in me like a candle blown out. 

“Careful, Athlyana,” He chuckled, “You sounded just like her.”

My blood ran cold. 

“What did you say?”

“You know,” His grin widened, “Your—what’s the expression—your sister from another mother?”  
I inhaled. _Stop talking._  
“Don’t call her that,” I spat out, my voice cutting, “ _Don’t._ ”  
He ignored me. “How is she, child? I miss having her around, in a manner of speaking.”

“She’s—” I swallowed and forced myself to smile: “I really wouldn't know. I haven’t heard from her either.”

“Is that so?” He mused, his eyes shining with a peculiar ecstasy, “Truth be told, Athlyana, I'm starting to think that this unlikely quest of keeping your stray alive seems more like one of her biddings than that of your own, am I right?”

I reached out and smacked his Martini glass off our table before I could stop myself.  
The sound of its shattering was drowned by the music in the background.  
John Wick’s dog jumped under the table, startled. 

Winston didn't even blink. He studied my face, reading, analyzing, calculating.

I leaned into him and said, slowly, through gritted teeth:“I don’t want to know where she is. I don’t care if she’s alive or dead. She has no power over me.”  
_Not now. Not ever._

_Not anymore._

Winston locked my eyes with his and smiled his knowing, feline smile.  
“Nor have you any over her,” he said, “This thing with powers, it goes both ways, Athlyana. Allow me to remind you.”  
Enough.  
I stood up abruptly and pulled the leash. Let's go, boy. I was not in the mood for his games.  
“I'll tell Addy to bring you another,” I nodded at the shattered glass on the floor, “Your company is _awfully_ pleasant, sir, but I'm afraid I still have some business to attend to.” I put on my hat and pulled the brim down to shade my face.

Goodbye, you son of a bitch.

“I would consider giving her a call if I were you, Athlyana,” he called after me, “There's a storm coming.”

Yeah right, fuck you too.

The dog walked stiffly next to me. He must've sensed my shift in mood.

I walked towards Addy. She was pouring whiskey from a bottle, clearly busy. They should seriously consider hiring a waiter or something.  
“Came here to steal the rest of my stuff, kid?” She said without looking up.  
“Um,” I cleared my throat, “It wasn't me. I swear to God. It was Winston. I saw it with my own two ears.”  
She rolled her eyes.  
“Anyway,” I continued bravely, “Winston will have anoth—”  
“I know,” she cut me off and darted a quick glance at Winston’s table, “I saw your, uh, little episode. He vexing you again?”  
“Has he ever stopped vexing people?” I replied flatly.  
“I wouldn't know,” she shrugged, “Last time he came to me when I was working and gave me a 20-minute speech about the medical values of Japanese seaweed, I told him if he ever cross me again at work I'll put arsenic in his drinks. I say it worked. He hasn't bothered me for a week.”  
“I should try that sometimes,” I mused.  
She glanced at me. “What, arsenic? Don't. I'm telling you, kid, that thing tastes absolutely disgusting. And bad for your digestive system too.”  
“No, I mean tossing death threats at Winston,” I explained hastily, “If it could get him to stop talking bullshit. Don't worry, I know what arsenic tastes like. Not a fan. It tastes too— how do I put it—too artificial. It'll go well with chicory, though. Just add a little more salt and vinegar to balance out that horrible sweetness.” I winked at her.  
“I should try that sometimes,” she deadpanned. 

Right, I couldn't even tell if she was joking. Let's just leave it like that.

She took out a martini glass and a jar of olives. “How about you, kid? You want some soda?”  
“Uh, no thanks,” I politely refused, “I should really get going now.”  
“What? So soon?”She finished pouring the vermouth and slid the martini across the counter. “Is it his bed time?” She nodded at the pit bull, who was now looking up expectantly at us.  
“It's passed mine,” I explained.  
“Just wait here for a minute,” She turned away and shouted: “Francis!”  
A man sitting near the counter jumped up and walked hastily towards us, his whiskey on rocks left untouched on his table.  
That leather jacket looked oddly familiar.  
6’5, athletic build, olive skin, coal black hair, warm emerald eyes and an Ankh tattoo on his collarbone-

_Hold the fuck up._

“Francis Welch?” I drew a sharp breath.  
Fuck, fuck, fuck….  
He reached the counter and gave Addy a dazzling smile. Son of a bitch had the whitest teeth I'd ever seen.  
_Hey, Francis, I see you already got that front tooth all fixed up, eh? I sincerely hope you won't remember that I was the one who knocked it out of your mouth with a stapler eight months ago–_  
“Take this to Winston, would you?” Addy gestured vaguely to the Martini.  
“Yes, mistress,” he bowed to her theatrically, taking the glass between his deft fingers in one swift movement.  
Oh boy.  
“You call me that again, I'll personally revoke your membership.” Her voice was as sweet as dried cinchona bark.  
“Whatever you say, Your Highness,” he winked at her before walking away, taking Winston's drink with him.

I looked to Addy. 

“He's Francis Welch.” I said in disbelief.  
“Yes, I am aware,” she replied impatiently, “And I'm a bartender, not a god damn waitress.”

Right.

When people talked to us kids about those in the Big League—such as John, especially John—and in this case, Francis Welch—before, they'd always want us to look up to them; and I remembered the specific line they’d use was “work until you no longer have to introduce yourself”, which I often found deeply disturbing and unappealing: why the hell would I, someone who'd been trying to keep myself from being recognized for 6 bloody years, want to be recognized everywhere I go for how well I disembowel people?

For me, Addy’s version was way better: Work until you can order the deadliest assassins in the New York city around like some cheap errand boys, and until you can yell at your boss without being fired because he is, apparently, terrified of you too.

“You know what he's doing in New York?” I asked.  
Addy made an exaggerated eye roll. “Do I look I live under a rock? I have something called a television, kid. I saw it on the news.”  
“No, but he's–” I lowered my voice, “–he's supposed to be in Washington D.C isn't he?”  
“Why don't you ask him yourself?”  
I turned around, subconsciously pulling down the brim of my hat. Welch sashayed towards us, his strides casual but calculated, a kind of predatory laziness.  
Too late to bolt now.  
He hopped onto the counter stool next to me and perched a hand on the polished surface.

“So what are you girls talking about? Care to share?”

His voice was smoother than silver, his eyes as warm as melted butter, and I really, really wanted to knock him over his head with the empty whiskey bottle on the counter and just get the hell out of here.  
“Francis,” Addy grinned widely at him, “Well, this young lady was just asking about you. She wants to know how you got here from Washington D.C so fast, I assume.”  
“Oh,” he smirked, not bothering so much as to toss a glance my way, “That's a matter of national security right there. I'm about to commit treason for you, my queen, just grant me another glance of that divine smile before I go to the gallows, and my heart shall be content.”

_About as smooth as that pretty face of yours after I slammed it into the tarred road 15 times and broke your nose, remember that Francis? Where was that, Vancouver? Good times. Good times._

You know what, on second thought, give me that whiskey bottle so I could smash it on the counter and stab myself in the fucking eyes with its shards. 

“Oh, was that—was that a medieval reference?” I chimed in, “Impressive. Keep up the good work, casanova.”  
He slowly turned to me, a slight frown forming between his perfect eyebrows. I bet the motherfucker trimmed them right before he came here. 

I gave him my best psychotic grin. 

His frown deepened. He squinted to peek under my hat and looked me up and down.  
_Please don’t recognize me. Please don’t_ — “And you are?” 

_Fuck yes._

Addy cleared her throat. “You might recognize her canine friend,” She suggested. 

His eyes landed on the pitbull, who was now chewing enthusiastically on my shoelaces. 

He looked back to me.

Then he looked to the dog again.

So, even those in the Big League had heard the news. Fantastic.

My psychotic grin remained where it was. _Hello, Francis. I never had the opportunity to properly introduce myself._

“Oh. Oh my.” He physically straightened. “Forgive me, sweetheart, I’m not good with faces. Atlas, isn’t it?”

_It’s ok. No one’s good with my face._

I put special effort in making sure that I would constantly get forgotten, and he would probably never recognize me if it weren’t for the dog. If it weren't for John. More specifically, if it weren't for the thirty million attached to his head.

“Yes,” I gave him a curt nod: “And may I just say, that work at the White House this morning was beautifully done.”

“Thank you, my girl,” He pressed a hand to his chest and bowed, “Doing God’s work, nothing more. I think it’s safe to say that I will sleep better at night from now on.”

“I'm sure you will,” I assured him: “Our country needs a hero like you, Francis.” A hero whom I almost killed with a knife to his left eye. Thank god he didn’t remember me.  
“Don’t encourage him,” Addy said from behind the counter, “To be honest, if he didn’t do it, I would probably kill the bastard myself.”  
“Heard that they want to put his god awful ‘Make America Great Again” on his headstone,” He rolled his eyes, “Can you believe it? _The nerve._ Wish I could kill him twice.”  
“I'm more concerned about their lack of creativity,” I shrugged, “But as long as that orange piece of shit won't be dropping any bombs on the heads of those malnourished third-world country children, I'm fine with whatever bullshit they want to put on his headstone. Just make sure that the letters are in Comic Sans and like, extra large printed, and keep it as simple as they can manage so that his idiotic supporters can understand it better when they come to mourn his oh-so-tragic death, you know what I'm saying?”

His dangerous green eyes lit up. “Addy, I like this one.”

He would probably want to rethink that opinion about me if he knew that _this_ one was the one who almost fucked up 10+ of his jobs and gave him at least four bullet wounds on his chest, all shots aimed at his heart but missed miserably.

“How come I’ve never met you before, my girl?” 

Oh, trust me, you have.

“I don't go out much,” I explained to him, “I don't really talk to people. I'm still at that rebellious emo stage in my life, you know, where I quietly resent everyone and wish death upon the human race.”

“Pretty sure that's all of us,”He laughed, the chuckles in his throat low and rough. “So what brings you here to honor us with your presence today, _Le Petit Dragon?_ ”  
Not you, obviously…. I shrugged, “My dog couldn’t just walk himself, could he?”

Welch had done his research, I gave him that. Only those who want something from me really bad would put an ounce of effort into getting to know me beforehand; and only those who wanted to use me to get what he wants would know, without a moment of hesitation, that calling me that god awful name Gabriel instead of Le Petit Dragon on our first meeting would undoubtedly make it our last.

The pit bull stopped tormenting my sneakers and looked up at us with his big brown eyes. I was mildly concerned that John’s insistent refusal of giving him a name had resulted in him ultimately getting tricked into thinking that his name was actually “dog” or “good boy”.  
Welch looked down to him and grinned his devilish grin. “Ah, yes. _The_ dog.” He crooned.  
Said dog panted excitedly and wagged his tail.  
Francis Welch hopped off the stool entirely too gracefully and crouched down in front of the pitbull, his smile not even faltering for a bit.

What was Welch’s master plan exactly? To seduce John Wick’s dog with his irresistible charm?

Well, if that was what he thought he was doing, he sure as hell was doing a damn fine job at it. Judging by how the dog was now gazing up dreamily at him, it didn't take more than a pretty face and a kind smile to impress the Baba Yaga’s deadly sidekick. I glared down at him. _Image, boy. Image._

“Dogs are such amazing creatures, aren't they?” He hadn't took his eyes off the pit bull, “They’re so…. Loyal. You’d almost think that they’ll never leave their owners’ side, yet here we are.” He stood up with the same kind of elegance he’d flaunted unabashedly—and rather purposefully—before, and leaned into me. “Makes you wonder.” He chuckled, his hot breath grazing my ear.

“Really?” I looked into his eyes, undeterred.“What’s there left to wonder? You know, Francis, if you want answers, you need to ask your questions. Be a little more specific, would you?”

He pulled away, a smirk slowly forming around his perfect lips. “I like your style,” He shook his head, “No bullshit. No beating around the bush. I like that.”

“I don’t like bushes,” I explained, “I got rid of those ugly fuckers on my lawn so when some nosy bastards forget to mind their own business, I’ll at least have a better aim at them.” I patted my coat, jingling those thirty combat knives underneath the leather.  
He glanced at my coat and laughed under his breath.  
Did he get the message? I hoped he got the message.  
“Anyway, as you said, I do have some questions,” He nodded, “And I hope, sincerely, that you will be able to provide the answers I need.”  
He didn’t get the message.  
“Ask away,” I gestured to him, “I’m in no hurry. I think I can spare the greatest hero of our generation a good few minutes.”  
“Oh yes, flattery will get you anywhere, my girl.” He smirked, “Well then. Just to be clear—this conversation that we’re going to have, it’s entirely of my own healthy curiosity towards a co-worker that I’m aiming to befriend. No pressure.”  
His curiosity didn’t sound awfully healthy to me when he put it like that.  
“Where did you find him?”  
Oh well, the classic “When, Where and Who.” I could handle this.  
“Not far from here,” I looked up, acting like I was trying to recall the details, “Eh…. Somewhere near that old flower shop? The one on Beekman Street?”  
He nodded, “You uh…. Out buying some roses for you Valentine?”  
Haha. Good one. “I’m not really a flower kind of guy, to be honest,” I shrugged, “I was meeting someone there. Picking up my payment for a previous job—please excuse me for not sharing the details, my last employer made it very clear that I was not to go out and brag about his private business in elaborated manners.”

He put up a hand. “I understand, I understand,” He assured me, “So what now? You gonna keep the little monster, kid?”

“I think so,” I looked down to the dog and stroked his back, “I’m rather fond of him. He’s a joy to be around, in case you haven't noticed.” The dog, feeling a sudden urge to emphasize my point, jerked upright and viciously attacked my left shin.

“That’s what I thought,” Welch sniggered, and I wanted, more than ever, to smack the smug smile off his stupid perfect face—just like what I’d done about a thousand times before. 

“However,” He mused, “No offense, just a friendly reminder: You might find him to be less a joy but more a trouble in a couple of months. A big trouble.” 

He thought I was an idiot, didn’t he?  
Fine. I would play along. 

I frowned at him. “How so?”

Anyone could play smart, but playing dumb—that took more than a few years’ practice; thankfully, I was an expert in this particular field.

“Have you ever been to a jungle, Atlas?” His voice was velvety—if velvet were liquid, churning violently at the bottom but the glossy surface tamed and smooth, even in the wildest storm. Such a lake could drown the wisest fisherman and poison the deepest ocean; now, I was right in the middle of it, where he put me, and I was all alone in my sinking paper boat.

Careful, I warned myself: Watch your step.

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” I shrugged, “Have you?”  
“As a matter of fact, I have,” He chuckled: “And a cruel, cruel place it was. But its beauty almost made up for all the violence. Almost.”  
“Uh, yes, that’s a very fascinating story,” I nodded uncomfortably. “But can you fast forward to the part that concerns my dog, please? It’s already passed my bedtime. Ask Addy, she would know.”  
“There were animals, tens of thousands of them—all of them lethal in some ways, but few of them kill.”

He didn’t seem to have heard me.  
Ok. 

“I even saw some tigers there. You like tigers, kid?”

Huh. He never runs out of pointless questions, does he?  
“My feelings towards them are usually pretty neutral,” I proceeded cautiously, unsure where this conversation was heading: “But I do prefer to admire their beauty and uh, violence, from a healthy distance.”  
He chuckled. “Wise choice, my girl. Wise choice. See, when I was as young as you, I didn’t possess your astonishing wisdom. Unfortunately.”  
“Flattery will get you anywhere,” I muttered under my breath. 

Out of the three existing humans that had ever given me a “When I was your age” speech, he was probably the most confusing one. I meant, the guy was only thirty-one and looked twenty, what’s with all the melodrama?

“Have you ever seen a tiger cub, Atlas?”

I’d already noticed that he actually didn’t care much about my answers to this point, so I decided to remain silent.  
“They were beautiful, those cubs. Beautiful, and next to harmless. I thought they were like kittens—and in a manner of speaking, they _were_ kittens, just prettier and wilder—so I grabbed one by its neck and picked it up.”  
He stopped and looked to me. “I just wanted to hold it, that was all–I never intended to bring anything with me. But I did end up bringing home a little souvenir.”

He reached up and pulled down his black shirt to reveal the top of his right pec. 

On his tanned skin, four jagged lines of pale scratches stood out like a kind of grotesque war paint. 

It was done by a feline paw. I didn’t know how I knew, I just…. _Knew._

I was starting to see his point now.  
“Charming,” I raised an eyebrow at him, “That’s, uh, a little too big for a cub paw, isn’t it?”

It wasn’t a cub.

It was the one that followed them, feeded them, guarded them, and killed for them.

“It was the mother,” He looked down and chuckled: “She caught me red-handed, with her child still in my arms. Didn’t give me much time to explain for myself.”  
I knew exactly what he was going to say. I was only amazed, that someone would be willing to go through this kind of trouble to explain to me something so painfully obvious. 

Human nature would forever be a mystery to me.

“He won't give you time to explain for yourself, either,” he smiled, this time dropping the smugness and switched to a more sympathetic look: “You have the monster baby in your arms now, Atlas. Now the monster mommy is coming for you. Do you really think you are ready for him?” He shifted closer to me, as if sharing an unspeakable secret: “Or was that just exactly what you wanted when you took his baby under your wings?”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “What makes you think that?” 

He laughed under his breath. “Thirty million is a lot of money, my girl. They’re out there, turning New York upside down to find one man, and what if–what _if_ –you have something that can make him come to you? If you can just sit there and make him play by the rules, _your_ rules–if I told you that all you have to do now is _wait,_ would you leave? Would you leave home and everything you have, everything you love, if you could just _wait_ for him?”  
I stared at him.  
His mask was slipping away, and I caught a glimpse of what was underneath: in that moment, I pitied him.  
He too, was a man who had something he couldn’t afford to lose.  
Just like John.

Just like me.

He cleared his throat, trying to cast away the uncomfortable silence between us.  
He lost control, and now he needed to win it back. Win _me_ back.  
“Forgive me if I seemed entirely too aggressive,” He gave me an apologetic, boyish smile and I almost fell off the stool. Ok, he had won me back.

“I was only trying to help. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Mr.Wick is somewhat before your time, isn’t he?”

“Was,” I corrected him: “Heard he’s back, _isn’t he_?” I laughed quietly. “Got himself hell of a welcome party, too.”  
He laughed with me half-heartedly. “The thing is, you don’t know him. I do. He once killed–”  
“–Three man in a bar with a pencil. I know. I’ve been hearing that story since I was eleven, I think I can at least remember this part.” _Seriously? This is what he's opening with?_  
“Then perhaps you can remember something else,” He shrugged, “Like how dangerous he is. You think he killed the Tarasovs for love? For his dead wife? No, my girl, he killed for his _pride._ I’ve seen too many men like him.”

“Yeah, I bet you have,” I mumbled under my breath.

“Excuse me, did you say something?”  
“Uh, no. Continue.” I gestured around vaguely. Bloody hell, that was close.

“I’ve seen too many men like him,” He carried on, “Men who cannot stand by and watch what belong to them get taken away. Even if it’s just a puppy, or a car.” He looked down to the pit bull. He had already fallen asleep by now, his big head resting on my left ankle, his drools soaking my jeans. This was just not my lucky day.  
“Uh, _correct me if I’m wrong_ –” I couldn’t help myself; his rambling was entirely too ridiculous– “But aren’t there like, what, five million hitmen now want his head on a platter? I think his _pride_ will be the least of his concern.”

“You really know nothing about him, do you?”

“You know, you keep saying that, makes me wonder just how well _you_ actually know him.” I shot back. I could’ve just asked John, but truth be told, I was a little scared to find out.

“Makes me wonder, too,”

A new voice boomed behind me, and I literally fell off the stool.  
“Fucking hell,” I muttered, and the pitbull whined loudly in protest of being knocked over by my elbow. My hat fell to the ground. No one offered a helping hand. Charming. 

Who said chivalry was dead? Whoever that was, let me buy him a drink because he was damn right.

I quickly scrambled to my feet, only to find myself facing something that vaguely resembled a stone wall.

If walls have body heat and heartbeats.  
Oh no.  
I looked up.  
Was it me, or was his jawline getting straighter everytime I saw him?  
“Uh, hey, Alex,” I tried to back away from him, but soon found that idea being impractical, since taking a step back meant literally falling into Francis’s arms. So I stood there, sandwiched by two overgrown men in an intense staring contest who were now both trying to make the most of their ridiculous height and rock-hard muscles, and I regretted every single decision that led me into this moment of ultimate terror, such as the unwise decision of coming out of my mothers womb. 

I could almost be certain that I heard Addy snickering behind the counter. 

This just kept getting better, didn’t it?

“Wow, are you getting taller?” I tried to snuck out from underneath his elbow. No luck. “Nice hoodie, by the way,” I said to his chin, “Really brings out those eyes of a serial killer.”

He didn’t even look at me. Ok. 

“What the hell are you doing here,” I heard Francis hissed behind me.  
“Oh that’s–that’s mature,” Alex scoffed, “ _You’re_ asking me what _I’m_ doing here? Well I’m not the one who thought he could just run off for five fucking days without even a goddamn post-it on the fridge just because his boyfriend _accidentally_ broke a fucking washing machine–”  
“I had a president to assassinate, in case you forgot about it,” Francis snarled: “And I told you that two weeks ago, thank you very much. You just panicked because you weren't listening to me then, just like the way you weren’t listening to me when I told you to check the pocket of your trousers before you throw it into the washing machine!”  
“I just forgot about it, ok? Like you never forget things….”  
“You left a _gun_ in it, Alex!”  
“A small one!”  
“It was a _rifle_ for God’s sake, how was that small?”  
The real question was, what kind of pocket could fit a rifle in it? And what kind of people carry rifles around in their pockets?

Alexander Kaelan Hart, everyone.

“And how was I supposed to know what the fuck was going on with you?” He demanded.  
“I _told_ you, how many times do you need me to repeat that?”  
“You pointed to the TV screen and said ‘I’m going to kill that piece of shit’.”  
“Exactly!”  
“You’ve been saying that since _before_ he got elected, Francis. How was that a way to tell me anything? That’s fucking bullshit, that’s what it is!”  
“Would you stop tossing swear words around like a barbarian, Alexander, we have a _child_ here for God’s sake!”

“I’m thrilled that someone even remembers my existence,” I deadpanned, “Speaking of which, can you two maybe stop yelling at each other above my head and wait until I’m standing over there?” I pointed to the door.

“We apologize,” Alex said flatly, still not looking at me, “But that won’t be any of your concern. We’re leaving.” He reached passed me and seized Francis by his arm.  
“Let go of me, you son of a bitch,” He growled.  
“He hasn’t paid for his drink yet,” Addy called from behind the counter. 

Alex reached into the back of his trousers and pulled out his wallet. He threw a twenty dollar bill onto the counter, and another on my stool. 

He was probably too pissed to remember that paying with coins was, in fact, a lot cheaper. 

“Her drink’s on us,” He motioned to Addy. She nodded to him, collected her twenty dollars and looked to Francis.  
The sweet grin on her face was pure evil.  
“Time for the gallows, sweetheart,” She leaned in to kiss his cheek, “We’ll be expecting your good news.”

Alex pulled him out from behind me.  
I backed away, feeling the pressure above my head vanish. 

Who knew breathing was such a wonderful thing?

“Wait,” Francis yanked his arm back and turned to face me. My god, what now?  
“If you change your mind about the dog–if you need help, or if his–owner–found you, you could always consider giving me a call.” He slid a card to me. There was a number on it, and nothing else. 

I looked up and grinned a toothy grin at him. “What’s in it for me?”

“Uh, look, kid, this is really not the right time,” He glanced back to Alex nervously, “We’ll–we’ll discuss the money some other time. No hustling, I promise,”  
“Of course,” I nodded, “Well then, enjoy your date night, sir.”  
Alex grabbed his hand and the two men left without another word.  
Well, if you could ignore Francis’s “Piss off, there’s nothing to look at” and Alex’s “Shut the fuck up before I make you”.

“Nice to see you too, Alex,” I called after him. He didn’t even turn around.  
He probably didn’t hear me.  
I turned back to Addy.  
“I didn’t order a drink,” I picked up the twenty dollar bill Alex left me.  
“It’s never too late,” She shrugged, “You want one?”  
“Nah,” I stuffed the bill into my pocket, “Saving it for later.”  
She nodded.  
“So what was that all about?” She asked.  
“Washing machines,” I explained: “And drama. Lots of drama.”  
“No, I mean you and Francis,” She arched an eyebrow: “What’s the deal with you two? Don’t deny it, I saw the look on your face. You were scared shitless. You’ve met him before?”  
I sighed, “It’s complicated.”  
“What, you two were cheekbone buddies? The only two existing human in the United States that can commit mass murders with cheekbones alone?”  
“Hey, hey, no need to get personal,” I protested, “And I don’t think you of all people should be talking about sharp cheekbones, Addy. Heard a poor bastard tried to touch your face last week and lost three fingers.”

“I sawed them off with a wine key,” She explained patiently, “Not my cheekbones.”

“How does that even work?”  
“I can show you,” She shrugged, “I have a wine key right here. And now I need a volunteer.”  
“Uh, perhaps some other time,” I politely declined. “So what’s that thing you wanted to talk to me about? Be quick, Addy. I really need to head home now.”

“Oh,” She put down a shot glass. “That. Wait here for a second.”  
She turned around and opened the cabinet.  
“Got your new friend a little something,” she pulled out a paper bag and handed it to me.  
I opened it and peered inside.  
Spice-free beef jerky, a rubber ball and some edible chews. She’d stopped by a pet store.

I looked up at her.

“Your first pet,” she smiled at me: “Congratulations.”  
“Thank you,” I nodded, lost for words.  
Winston didn't tell her.  
“Do you–” I swallowed, feeling uneasy all of a sudden: “Do you want to pet him?”  
Her eyes softened. “Yes, I think I would like that,”  
I reached down, thrusted an arm beneath the dog and picked him up.  
Hell, he was heavy.  
I hoisted him up onto the counter with difficulty. He whined, not wanting to be waken up.

Addy reached out carefully and ran a hand through his coat. Please don't bite her, I prayed in my head.

He raised his head slightly to look at her, then went back to sleep.

Addy laughed.

It was startling, hearing her laugh; she had a laughter of a little girl, and her face lit up when she did it, making her look softer, dazzling with a different kind of innocent charm.  
It reminded me, all of a sudden, that she was young, still young, and painfully so.  
“He’s warmer than I thought,” She mumbled under her breath, her slim fingers scratching the spot behind his left ear.  
“Yeah, it’s probably because you thought he was dead,” I explained: “He’s a heavy sleeper.”  
She reluctantly withdrew her hands and looked up to me.  
“What do you think happened to him, kid?” She muttered, her blue eyes stripped of their usual clever mischief.  
“Do you think he’s dead?”  
I wanted to tell her.  
I wanted to tell her he was safe.  
No, I bit down at the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood.  
No. 

“I don’t know,” I forced myself to meet her eyes: “I don’t know him.”

“Not a lot of people do,”She looked down: ”What Francis Welch said about him, it wasn’t true, you know. About how he would kill for his pride.” 

“He wouldn’t?” I kept my tone nonchalant, uninterested.

“The Jonathan I knew doesn’t have that kind of ego,” She laughed quietly: “He would kill for many things–money, freedom, _love_ , perhaps–but not pride. Take good care of the dog, Atlas, and watch your back. One day, someday, Jonathan will find you, or you will find him; then you can see for yourself what kind of man he really is.”

“Then what is he?” My heart pounded in my chest. It was at that moment that I realized just how afraid I really was.

“A killer, perhaps,” She smiled, and that smile was the saddest thing I’d ever seen my whole life.

“But not a monster.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a huge chapter, so I think I can be excused for the delay(??) anyway, once again I got carried away writing crack, so there's that. As always, I appreciate any feedback! (A president of the United States with hideous orange skin whose campaign slogan was "Make America great again" just got murdered in this chapter. I wonder who that was....)
> 
> P.s A fun fact about this chapter: when I started to write my oc Francis Welch, I have an idea about what he should look like; and I stumbled across a picture of an actor called Matthew Daddario (I think he plays Alec Lightwood in the Shadowhunters TV series?? Correct me if I'm wrong) after I finished the chapter- He looks EXACTLY like the Francis I pictured in my head. It kind of freaked me out for a bit. So if you still wonder what Francis looks like, just search the actor and you'll know.


	10. Little Christopher

_6 years ago, in New York_

The entire restaurant froze as the man in a black tweed overcoat threw his head back and laughed, oblivious to the gun that was now held an inch before his forehead.  
“Oh, Christopher,” He croaked between laughters: “Christopher, my child, how I’ve missed you.”

The tattooed hand behind the Beretta Semi-Auto pistol trembled.

“Such _temper,_ ” He sneered, “You do know that it’s the reason he left you behind, don’t you, child?”

“No one left me behind,” the young man said through gritted teeth, “No one _left_. They _vanished_.”

“ _Vanished_?” Another hysterical laughing fit. “Alright, gentlemen, put your toys away. Where are your manners? Little Christopher here is our guest.”

Every one of the fifteen guns pointed at the young man’s head disappeared in one clean click.

He swallowed hard, the Beretta in his hand remained where it was.

“Let’s assume that they really did _vanished_ –” The other man leaned forward and purposely rested his forehead on the barrel, “How am I supposed to find your–sorry, what’s the word again?”

“Our asset.” 

“Ah, yes” He grinned, “Your _asset_. How am I supposed to find them if they just melted into thin air like you claimed they did?”

“I don’t need you to find them,” The young man snarled, “I want you to report _intel_ back to us. And you refused. Do I have to remind you what would happen if you deny our orders?”

“Really?” The man in black overcoat raised an eyebrow. “ _Your_ orders?” He chuckled, not pulling away from the gun, “What would happen, Christopher? You’re going to pull the trigger, _boy_? Do it. Do it and you’ll see.”

“Sir,” The bodyguard standing on his left warned.

“Shh,” The older man put up a hand. “How many times, Isaiah, I don’t like it when people interrupt me. Especially when I’m talking to a guest.”

The Beretta creaked under his tightened grip.

“Take a look around you, boy. Go on. What did you see? Did you see your team? No? That’s because you don’t _have_ one. And before you say anything, I’ll have you know that they’re not waiting for you outside. I’ve already sent my men to check.”

The young man visibly paled, his gun-holding arm trembled violently. 

“Now, Christopher,” The man in black overcoat slowly sat back and looked up to meet his eyes: “Let me simplify the state of affairs for you. Your old shepherd left his flock behind, and you, little Christopher here, think you can take on his role–sorry to burst your bubble, but it’s wishful thinking at best. You weren’t even his watch dog, boy. You’re a little lamb trying to convince a hundred starving sheep to go hunt down a wolf. They tolerate you because you are young, but you won’t be young forever. How old are you? Twenty-five? Twenty-six? I’ll just say this: You may have won their affection, but you didn’t earn their respect.”

He raised a hand and slowly wrapped his fingers around the barrel. 

“You want to prove something? You want to prove to daddy that you are the worthy son? I can guarantee you, when daddy comes home to the mess you made, he’s not going to be happy. Your employer, your _master_ –He and I might not always see eye to eye, but I do know this one thing: You were never his favorite, and you never will be. So if you want to pull the trigger for him, do it. It’ll be nothing short of heroic.”

Time seemed to have crystallized in this moment. 

If anyone–the man in the black overcoat, the young man holding a gun with his unsteady hand, or the fifteen bodyguards surrounding them that all seemed to forgot how to breathe–spared a single glance at the window next to their table right now, he would’ve noticed the unusual sight of a pale, waiflike girl with inhuman eyes watching them through the fogged up glass. 

Their table was on the fifth floor.

When the young man who was no longer holding a gun turned and head for the elevator, escorted by five bodyguards that was not his own, the man in the black overcoat turned his head, slightly, just a fraction, and winked at the window.

The girl raised her arm, and in her bony hand lay a cartridge that once belonged to a certain Beretta Semi-Auto pistol.

In her other hand, a knife. 

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

She rapped on the window with the blade of her knife.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

“What are you smiling at, sir?”

The man in a black overcoat looked to the bodyguard on his right.

“Nothing, Alexander,” He said to his Head of Security, “It’s a private joke.”

When he looked back to the window, the girl was already gone.

The man in a black overcoat shook his head and laughed to himself. 

“Kids.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Friendly Reminder: Flashbacks in this fic is boring and short af, but extremely important. So have another! And don't forget to leave your comments below;)


	11. John Wick and his horrible, no good, very bad week

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter happened right after Atlas left John in Chapter 8.
> 
> If you're still reading, leave your comments/questions below to let me know what you think! And some of you have found my Tumblr and send me lovely asks regarding this fic, thank you for being awesome!(Yes my url is the same as my AO3 username. And yes I'll be very happy to receive asks.)

_Day 1_

The delivery boy was ten minutes late. He stayed at the door for a little while and apologized, said he overslept.  
“I swear to God it won’t happen again,” He pleaded: “Just give me one more chance. Keep this between you and me. Don’t tell your babygirl about this, eh?”

_My babygirl?_

John hid behind the sofa and tried to breathe as quietly as he could. 

He hadn’t forgotten about her warnings. 

After he made sure that the guy had entered the elevator, he got up, grabbed the phone on the kitchen table and dialed the number she gave him. 

_Don’t say anything. Count to ten then hang up._

_1,2,...._

Her familiar London accent flowed through the speaker with a hint of irritated boredom. “Montague Cemetery, you hang’em, we plant’em. How can I help you?”

He rolled his eyes. 

_5,6,7…._

“Nice try, asshole. Prank calling, how origina–”

_10._

He ended the call.  
Now he could only wait.

*

She showed up at the door twenty minutes later with a shotgun in one hand and a cup of Starbucks in another. 

“What?” She kicked the door shut and turned to him, “And why is my sofa at the door?”

“Your guy was late,” He said simply. 

“He’s what?”

“He’s ten minutes late.”

“He’s _what?_ ”

“He’s….” “Yes, yes, I heard you the first time,” She tossed her shotgun onto the sofa. “Coffee?” She gestured to him with the Starbucks.  
“No, thanks,” He said dryly.  
“Whatever,” She shrugged and took a sip, “It’s not coffee anyway, it’s green tea latte.” She grimaced, “And it’s disgusting. Are you going to put my sofa back to where it belongs or are you going to let me just stand here forever?” 

He walked over to the door and pulled the sofa away to let her in. 

“Ok, start talking,” She dropped into the sofa and pulled her shotgun onto her lap, “You have fifteen minutes.”

“He was ten minutes late. He put the food down at the door and apologized. I–”

“Wait,” She held up a hand, “What did he say?”  
He repeated everything for her.  
“Did you respond?”  
“No.”  
“Did he try to enter?”  
“No.”  
“Ok,” She pulled out her phone, “I’ll handle this.”  
She dialed a number and put the phone to her ear. 

“Hey Greg, have you been to my grandma’s yet?”

He raised an eyebrow at her. She glanced at him and mouthed: _What?_

“Did you talk to her?”

A moment of silence.

“Are you lying to me, Greg?”

Another moment of silence. 

“Greg, I told you she was unstable. She’s not to see or hear or acknowledge any other human’s existence except for herself and me, were we not clear? Now look what you’ve done. You’ve upset her. An old lady. A poor, lonely old lady. You proud of yourself? Oh yeah, you bloody well should be. You’re fired, Greg. Fired. Fuck you too. Have a horrible day.”

She ended the call and looked up to him. “It’s handled,” She grinned like a Cheshire cat, “Hell, can’t believe I actually thought you could make it through one day without me.”

He eyed her sheepishly, a bit embarrassed. “I was…. It could’ve been nothing, of course–But you said–”

She simply looked at him, her clear hazel eyes searching his face, reading, reaching, following. 

Her eyes seemed softer, somehow. But no warmer.

He looked away, trailing off mid-sentence.

“It’s never nothing, you know,” She ran a finger across the barrel of her shotgun like caressing a cat. “Hey. Look at me.”  
He did.  
“What you just did, it was a right thing. If anything go wrong, you let me know. Anything. Always. Are we clear?”

He could only nod. 

“Ok,” She took another sip of her latte and made a face. “Jesus, who even _drinks_ this thing.”

Green tea latte had always been Helen’s favorite, but he said nothing. 

“Anything else? If no, I should probably get going. I have a busy schedule today.”

“I can see that,” He nodded to the shotgun on her lap: “I thought you didn’t like guns.”  
She rolled her eyes. “You thought a lot of things, but you don’t _know_ much, do you?”

Actually, he did. Those countless afternoons he spent in Aurelio’s shop during his brief retirement had been…. Educational.

She sighed. “Don’t tell me those morons out there actually think I survived all these years with a dagger alone.”

 _Oh._

“Some do,” He shrugged, trying to keep his expressions as neutral as he possibly could.  
So she did know how to use guns.

She gave him a flat look. 

“You think I’d be here today if I’d never learned to pick up a damn gun? What good will _daggers_ do me if a gunfight breaks out?”

“The day we first met,” He said, “That job in Moscow, you didn’t bring a gun.”

This caught her off guard.

“Oh,” Her eyes widened, “Moscow. Six years ago. The Vasilyev brothers?”  
“The Vasilyev brothers,” He nodded.  
“You remember,” She breathed out softly. 

_I remember,_ He wanted to tell her: _I remember because I dreamed of that evening in the palace. I dreamed of that evening again and again and in the end I–_

“You’re hard to forget.” He said instead, a simple lie that was not yet a lie.

“I was thirteen,” she laughed bitterly, “I’ve changed. I've grown.”

“Guns always come first in training, especially when training kids,” he stared at her, puzzled, “And you started out young. You shouldn't have to _grow_ to be able to pick up a gun.”

“Look,” she took her hands off the shotgun, “I know I’m not like you, John. You're efficient, guns are efficient, I get it. But I don’t need help doing _my_ job.”

“You needed help that time you gave up your marker.”

Something bright and hot like pain flashed in her stone-cold hazel eyes, and for a second, he thought he saw her flinch. 

“You have your impossible mission, I have mine,” She said without looking at him, her voice dry, rough-edged. 

He wondered what kind of mission cost the kid her marker—whatever she’d gotten out of her deal with the devil, was it worth the price that followed?

His marker had gotten him a wife, a family.  
Short as that life had been, it was a good life, and he knew that Helen was worth it. He was still paying, and he would keep on paying, but he’d never regretted a thing.

Could Atlas Greene say the same?

When the girl left, she didn't take her half-drunk cup of Starbucks with her. He let it slowly go cold on the table. 

It was a reminder, a hideous one, a painful one, reminding him of Helen and how she used to collect Starbucks cups for absolutely no reason at all when she was still alive, with him, in the now-in-ruins home he built for them. 

But he kept it anyway. 

Maybe he liked the pain.

Maybe hurting was just fine.

_Day 2_

He spent an hour looking for that rat in the kitchen. He didn’t know why, it just seemed like a thing to do. 

“John?” He jumped a little when the kid lifted a corner of the tablecloth and crouched in front of his face, “What are you doing under the table? Is something wrong?”

“No,” He crawled out from under the table—not without comically hitting his head on the wooden edge, completely demolishing his last shred of dignity—“No. I was looking for—for my gun. ” 

“Your gun is on the bed,” She commented helpfully. He scrambled to his feet and dusted off his jeans with both hands.

“Right,” He nodded at her. “I didn’t hear you come in.” “Yeah, kind of a special talent of mine.”

She looked well. The dark circles under her eyes had faded; her stance was relaxed and she was no longer limping when she moved. There was no fresh cuts or bruises on her heart-shaped face. She did not look like someone who just got off from work.

“So how did that one go?” He couldn't help but ask.

“What?” 

“Yesterday. That job with the shotgun, how did it go?”

“Oh,” she shrugged, “It was tedious. But the parents agreed to offer me 30 dollars per hour if I could make their brat laugh, and I did, so at least the money was good.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“It was his birthday,” she explained. “His mom hired me. I was supposed to bring ‘the biggest and scariest gun I have’ and tell everyone I'm his cousin so he would look cool in front of his classmates. What, you guys don't do that sort of thing?”

“You do _birthdays_?” 

“I don't think you've fully grasped the concept of this freelancer thing yet,” She fished out a surgical mask from her handbag and tossed it to him.  
“Whatever. We don't exactly have time for a history lesson right now. Put this on, we're leaving.” 

He eyed the mask suspisciously. “Is this supposed to make me invisible?”

“No,” She took out a small bottle and shook it violently, “But this is.”

He did not like the look of that thing.

“What's that?”

She twisted the cap off and he smelled something like burnt plastic. 

“Your invisible cloak,” She stuck a finger into the bottle. The skin on her hand remained intact. 

At least it wasn’t sulfuric acid.

“Can you lean forward and just—you’re too tall—bend your knees a little bit–more, more–okay. Perfect. Hold still.”

“What are you doing?” 

_This is a terrible idea,_ He thought, vaguely, as he felt a kind of cold, gooey slime ran down the side of his face.

“I’m going to disfigure you. Close your eyes. ”

*

“I see you rubbing your eyes. Stop it.” Her voice buzzed through the earpiece in a series of furious hiss.

“It itches.” 

“It’ll pass. Now try to walk a little less stiffly, you’re not in the army anymore. Slouch a little. That’s too much. Up, up. Perfect. And stop replying to everything I say, you have no idea how suspicious you looked when you keep talking to your shoulder like that.”

“I’m wearing a surgical mask. They won’t notice my mouth moving.”

“I can see your mouth moving from this rooftop, John. And for your information, surgical mask isn’t supposed to mute you, so shut the fuck up.”

He turned his attention back to the streets and discovered that he was a second away from walking into a tree. A frustrated whine came out of the earpiece. “Fucking hell, watch where you’re going.”

At least there weren’t many people on the streets at this hour. He caught a glimpse of himself on the window of an illegally-parked BMW he walked past: A hideous scar stretched from the middle of his left eyebrow all the way into the surgical mask hanging loosely on his face. He had to admit, the kid had done a great job. She’d explained to him that the slime was a kind of makeup glue used to create the sunken and wrinkled effect of scars on human flesh, and that it was perfectly safe, and so on. It didn’t seem perfectly safe to him when she used half a bottle to glue his left eye completely shut, though.

And now it stung like a son of a bitch. 

“Don’t scratch it.”  
“I didn’t scratch it,” he protested.  
“You were thinking about it. Don’t. And stop. Replying.”

He gritted his teeth. 

“Here. Turn left.”

It wasn’t on the map, he opened his mouth to say but quickly stopped himself. He turned left and walked down the street in front of him. 

“Test, test, one, two, three. Oh hey, look who we have here.” She said in a sing-song tone of voice. 

A bearded man in his mid-forties casually strolled towards him. 

_Damn it all to hell._

His blood ran cold. 

He would recognize that face anywhere. Colin Wall used to work for Viggo, his personal little watchdog–he wasn’t the best fighter, but he was as loyal as a mastiff.

He knew John.

And he had a gun in his hand. 

“Keep walking. I know it’s very exciting to meet an old friend, but try not to stare at him. It’s not polite.”

What was the kid doing? He tore his eyes away and cursed under his breath. 

“I heard that. That’s not polite either, and please refrain from touching your gun. It looks really uncomfortable.”

The distance between the two men gradually closed. 

“No no no, don’t try to hide your face. Oh, here he comes. Glance at him. No–that’s _glaring_ –I said glance at him.”

Colin Wall looked back to him, then quickly lowered his eyes and walked past him in haste, muttering something like “God bless you” under his breath.

The kid’s hysterical laughter came from the earpiece.

“Not funny,” He mumbled.

“You should see your face,” She was still laughing. 

“You can’t see my face, I’m wearing a surgical mask. You did this on purpose.”

“Of course I did this on purpose. Want to know the secret behind my trick? Severe facial disfigurement can draw people’s attention to one specific spot on your face instead of the broad features that would get you recognized, and then it forces that attention off immediately by guilt tripping them. I knew it would work. It’s basic psychology. Science, John. Science.”

“You done bragging?”

“No. It worked, didn’t it? It worked. Like magic.”

“Yes, yes, it worked. Any more surprises?”

“I’m not telling you. That’s not how surprises work.”

He sighed and reluctantly walked into the darkness ahead.

_Day 3_

His second safe house was haunted. 

He’d never actually experienced a haunted house before–he didn’t even believe that such things exist–so whenever he heard the cupboard open and close on its own or whenever the half-rotten wooden floor let out those horrendous creaks in the middle of the night, he automatically assumed that it was rats. 

But now it was morning, the sunlight streaming through the window showed that there was nothing whatsoever on the now-creaking floor, a mug filled with hot tea was clearly floating in the air right beneath his nose, and John had decided that this place was probably a slight hazardous to his health.

The kid, on the other hand, seemed entirely uninterested to the environment around her. She’d curled up in the plastic chair by the window and dedicated her attention completely to the hunting knife on her lap. 

She was trying to scrub off a chunk of dried meat on the blade, but so far no luck.

“What? No, he isn’t,” She said loudly into her lap, “Stop licking his hair. Leave him alone. No, no biting.”

“I don’t like this,” He announced. The mug in front of his face didn’t budge an inch.

“Drink it, it’s good for you,” She didn’t bother to look up.

He backed away from the floating mug and it followed him stubbornly.

“Don’t fucking try that again,” She suddenly snapped into the air on her left, “Both of you. No, no. Not you, John. Not you. Sit down and drink your tea.” 

“Can I ask a question?”

She looked up at him, irritated.

“Yes, ghosts are real. No, they won’t murder you in your sleep. And yes, you have to drink your tea. Anything else?”

He pointed to the wall behind his bed.

“Do the walls normally just bleed like that?”

She darted a quick glance at the bloody mess.  
“Drama queens,” She muttered under her breath then sighed, “It’s corn syrup. They’ve been running low on real blood for months. Just ignore them, they’re trying to get your attention. They’ll clean it up themselves.”

He didn’t even want to know what she meant. 

_Day 4_

Someone kept turning the lights on, and the noises in the bathroom was getting increasingly annoying. He missed the silence. He missed being alone, truly alone. Now he felt like his tragedy had an audience, and an unpleasant one at best.

She didn’t come.

He tried talking to whatever was in the house, but there was no response.

_Day 5_

He dreamed of something awful, something worse than ghosts and haunted houses. 

He woke up in the middle of the night, sweating and disoriented, and his gun was gone. 

He slowly sat up.

His gun had been disassembled completely, the parts carefully lined up at the other end of the bed.

He collected everything from the blanket and started putting them back together. He did it slowly and surely, a simple practice he’d done more than a thousand times before. 

When he finished, he carefully placed the gun back down on the edge of his bed.

Then he simply watched as it fell apart, piece by piece, and he waited.  
The parts lined up on the blankets by themselves.

He assembled his gun again, this time faster.

Then he passed it back to the thing that he couldn’t see.

Then again.

And again.

Morning came, but she still didn’t.

_Day 6_

He woke up at six in the morning to find the kid lying on the floor, her face bloody. 

His unconscious lash out from last week flashed before his mind, and for a second, one terrible, terrible second, he thought that he’d killed her.

He got off the bed and knelt beside her. “Hey,” He grabbed the girl by her shoulders. 

Her hazel eyes flew open, cold and clear and sober. He let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding.

“Fuck,” She sat up, violently rejecting his helping hand. “Fuck, I fell asleep.” She mumbled to herself, embarrassed, and rubbed her face with an equally bloody hand. She didn’t seem to have noticed how her nose was very much still bleeding. 

She saw his frown and slowly lowered her hand.  
“It’s from a job,” She said simply, like that explained everything.

He recognized that tone of voice, and a sudden, sharp pain cut through his chest like a rusted hunting knife.

That was the tone of voice he used to use on Helen when she was questioning his many random injuries that never healed quite right. _Oh, that. It’s nothing. It’s from work. No, it’s not serious. It’s just one job._

_Don’t worry. I’m ok._

In the kitchen, a whole package of dried apricot fell out of the cupboard. 

He didn’t bother to get up. Neither did she.

Those living with him in the house, they would put it back themselves anyway. Just like the dozens of dishes they’d broken and then made whole again. 

Sometimes he wished everything in life could be like that, as simple as a haunted house. 

_Day 7_

The wall behind his bed was bleeding once more, and it smelled suspiciously like real blood. He didn’t want to know where they got the blood.

He sat in the kitchen, drinking the tea she made the day before. 

It had gone slightly sour by now, but he drank it anyway. 

When he looked up again half an hour later, the wall was spotless and the metallic smell in the air had gone. 

He had questions, but she didn’t come and he didn’t call. He fell asleep in the kitchen and there was no dreams this time, only the white light coming from the flameless candles she set around the table. It was blinding, and he felt safe. 

_Day 8_

Something happened on this day.


	12. You have to find John

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. A short chapter again.... But don't worry, I promise chapter 13 will be more than this. And FYI, this chapter happened right after Atlas left the Continental Hotel in chapter 9.

_Get up. You have to find John._

The night sky was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. 

The velvety blackness was surrounded by the yellow light of streetlamps, and the peaceful sight made me feel something like warmth. But then that feeling passed, along with some other things. 

In fact, I couldn’t even feel anything at all. Except for the canine teeth chewing on my left ear. Oi.

Maybe I could just lie here forever, enjoying a night in New York with my dog….

“So pretty,” I said out loud. 

“What?”

I pointed upwards to the sky. 

“Um,” The voice next to me commented, “I agree, ma’am, but you can’t just lie here all night. You’re in the middle of a road.”

_Ma’am?_

I looked to his side and squinted. The view of the sky was replaced by a familiar face of passive concern. 

“Jimmy?”

His kind eyebrows furrowed. “Have we met before?”  
Right. Of course he didn’t recognize me. 

I tried to sit up, but I couldn’t move. Why couldn’t I move?

“Eh, Jimmy,” There was a strange coldness rising in my chest, which was fairly odd considering that I wasn’t even breathing in the first place. _Wait, I’m not breathing?_

“Can you help me up please?” 

What the hell was happening?

“Of course, ma’am,” He sounded strangely hesitant: “But maybe you could drop the weapon first?”

“What weapon?”

“Uh, the one that’s been pointing at my face?” 

Now that he mentioned it, I finally noticed my outstretched right arm and the Sig Sauer clenched tightly in my hand.  
There was something wrong with my hand, too. 

I couldn’t feel it.

Slowly, and carefully, I loosened my grip on the gun. One finger at a time…. 

Pain exploded through me, from my stiffened hand to my head and my chest and my lungs and my everywhere, the vicious heat sawing through my skin, gnawing at my bones.

The Sig Sauer in my hand dropped to the ground with a loud clack. 

“Son of a bitch,” I screamed.

“Maybe keep your voice down, too,” Jimmy suggested, “It’s kind of late.”

I held my right hand to my eyes and squinted at it. 

My heart sank.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

My entire right hand had obtained a healthy shade of purple and red; the skin around my knuckles had bursted open, and I could see, from the wide cut on the back of my hand, that there were shards of plastic buried in the wounds. 

Pulling them out would hurt like hell. 

“That looks bad,” Jimmy commented helpfully. “But you should probably get some help with your middle first.”

I looked down. 

The middle of my abdomen had been slashed open by a knife and a clearly unsteady hand, leaving a bloody mess soaking through my third-favorite white shirt. 

“You need me to call an ambulance, ma’am?”

“No, no,” I breathed out slowly, “Just help me up. Please.”

He crouched and slid an arm under my backside. “I’m going to count to three, ok? Or do you want to count? I think you should count.”  
“Just pull me up, god damn it,” I yelled. 

He shut up and obeyed, and I clenched my teeth as the overwhelming pain tore through me, again.

 _Go_ , a voice in my head urged: _You have to find John. He needs you._

“Did you see what happened?” I pressed my uninjured palm flat against my stomach and forced myself to stand upright on my own without fainting. Jimmy hesitantly retracted his hand and took a step back.

“Yeah. Saw the whole thing. I was there across the street.” He pointed with his empty hand–his other hand was still hovering above his holster. Couldn’t blame him.

Good thing the cut wasn't deep enough to reach my inside. If my intestines came tumbling out after I directly rejected an officer’s offer to get me an ambulance, it would’ve been problematic and very, very embarrassing. 

“You sure you don’t need a doctor? Is there something I can do?” 

“I said I’m fine, dammit!” I yelled again. He flinched.

 _You have to go now._ The voice flicked on my aching skull.

I took a deep breath. 

“Just tell me what happened.” I lowered my voice.

Jimmy started again, this time even slower. “That guy, um, named Russell or something, he ran you over with his motorbike–”

“ _Tried_ to run me over with his bike,” I corrected him, “Yeah, I remember that part. Continue.”

“Uh–” He opened his mouth, then closed it again and looked past me. “Can you–can you maybe tell him to stop doing that?”

I turned around.

The pitbull was lying on Russell Stewart’s bloody corpse, tearing chunks of flesh off his torso. Chew, chew, swallow. That’s my boy.

“Let him eat. He doesn’t like the dry dog food I bought anyway.” I turned back to Jimmy.

Wait.

There was something wrong with the body. 

I looked back again.

“His face.” I said, simply, not knowing what else I should’ve said instead. 

“Yeah,” Jimmy walked over to stand next to me: “He tried to take your dog.”

“His face,” I pointed to the corpse, “Where is it?”

“He hit you with his bike,” Jimmy stated again, “And tore the leash out of your hand. He hit you hard, I thought you’d at least be out for a few hours–a concussion or some broken bones–but you got up immediately and pulled him off his bike. I’ve never–” He swallowed, “I’ve never seen someone move so fast before in my entire life.”

This was bad. This was seriously bad.

“Are you ok? You’re shaking,” said Jimmy. 

“I’m fine,” I gritted my teeth, “Go on.”

“You pinned him to the ground and–” His eyes slid down to my screwed-up right hand.

I stared at it.

“No.”

“Yes,” He swallowed again, “He had a–a knife or something like that–strapped to his wrist, and he went mad on your stomach,” He gestured to my bloody abdomen, “But you didn’t even stop for a second. After a while, he–” He took a deep breath, “He stopped moving. You still didn’t stop. You seriously don’t remember that?”

I shook my head.

“You beated his face in _through_ the face shield of his helmet, ma’am. You shattered that thing with your bare hand. Then you got to what was under that, and you just kept going.” 

That would explain the pieces of plastic in my knuckles.

“It was kind of impressive, actually,” Jimmy added, probably wanted to make me feel better. 

“It was stupid, that’s what it was,” I muttered, “And he should’ve bought a better helmet. What happened after that? I just passed out like that?”

“Then–Then your dog ran towards you and nudged you on your ribs.”

“Then what?” I urged, impatient.

“You stood up, turned to the dog,” He looked at me, hesitant, “Then you pointed Russell’s Sig Sauer at him.”

My blood ran cold.

“....Then, yeah, you just dropped to the ground. Like that. Then I came.”

There was a voice in the back of my mind, but I could no longer make out what it was saying.

I needed to find John.

“.... I know whose dog he was, ma’am. I knew his ex-owner. Great guy, caused me a shit tons of trouble. Look, if things get out of hand, you can just give me the dog. I have plenty of space in my house–I mean, shooting the poor thing is a little much, don’t you think? I–”

“I have to go,” I said out loud. 

“What? Ma’am, you’ve lost too much blood. You won’t make it. Go to a hospital first.”

“Jimmy,” I said, slowly, “Stop calling me ma’am. And I know you mean well, but there’s nothing you can do. Don’t worry about me, I’m going to be fine. And by the way, I would prefer you to not tell anyone about what you saw tonight. I know where you live. Don’t force my hand.”

Great, I totally just threatened a police officer. Put that on the top of my pile of “regrettable decisions I could make in one night”. 

I swiped Stewart’s Sig Sauer off the ground and whistled to the dog. He hopped off the corpse and ran to me, his snout bloody. I walked over to Russell’s lifeless body, fished out a gold coin from my pocket with great difficulty–everything was so damn bloody and slippery–and placed it carefully in the middle of his forehead. 

Well, where his forehead should’ve been. 

I could make a dinner reservation on my way to the safe house. 

“See you around, Jimmy.”

 _I have to find John,_ I pressed tightly on the gushing wound across my stomach. 

_I have to find John._

“Kids,” I heard Jimmy mutter under his breath as I turned and staggered across the road.


	13. Day 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that I said this will be a long chapter, BUT because I'm currently in California for a summer session in UC Berkeley, ILL BE EXTREMELY BUSY AND HAVE NO ME (AKA WRITING) TIME IM SORRY IM A PIECE OF ABSOLUTE TRASH
> 
> Soooo the plan's changed! I'll still do my best to update regularly, but I'll divide each upcoming chapter into several parts so that my three existing readers wouldn't have to wait a month for me to update once. Again, leave your comments below and tell me what you think!

Day 8

It was two in the morning when John felt something drip onto his face. His first thought, instinctively, was to cover his face with a pillow and go back to sleep– _damn this house and whatever game it's playing_ –but then he noticed the silence.

The grating creaks across the wooden floor, the violent slamming of cupboard doors or the forever-leaking faucet that could never be fixed–those unlikely noises that once haunted his endless nights were gone, all gone.

He opened his eyes.

His pit bull had hopped into the bed and was now standing over him, panting excitedly, two curious brown eyes staring into his.

He exhaled and wiped the dog’s drools off his face with the back of his hand.

The kid was here. She brought him.

“Hey buddy,” he said softly, reaching up to pet the dog on his back. “Good boy–”

His fingers sank into something wet and sticky, something that was far worse than just a few weeks’ lack of shower and grooming.  
He knew what it was long before he switched on the lamp beside his bed and saw the crimson soaking through the white fur on his chest, or the bits of flesh scattered around his snout like that kind of disgusting canned dog food he'd advised the kid against buying but could never keep her from doing it– “Then what do you suggest I do instead,” She’d demanded then, with a hint of indignation, “It wasn’t my fault that your dog hated dried dog food…. Yes, I know, canned ones rot their teeth, but I’d rather take him to a dentist every Sunday morning than have him starved to death, thank you very much….”–

_Where is she?_

It wasn't just his dog. There was blood on the floor, too. He couldn't see much sitting in the bed, but there was a single bloody handprint inked onto the front door, and another on the sofa; the air in the house smelled like that of a slaughterhouse. 

He knew that the place was haunted, but now he could feel a dying thing in the house, a life drifting away; and the dead, in the contrary, was silent.

“Atlas?” He called, his voice calm.

It wasn't his dog’s blood. There was too much, far too much. 

He held his gun up to his chest, gently nudged the dog off his bed with an elbow and got off the bed almost soundlessly. 

There was even more blood on the floor than he'd expected. 

A sense of surrealism seized him, and for a second, he was back in that palace in Moscow, six years younger, with a gun in his hand, and the trail of blood in front of him belonged to something that didn’t need all the warmth in its veins. 

_How do you know if you’re still dreaming?_

_You don’t._

He could hear noises coming from the bathroom now that he'd gotten closer; it was a voice, a low one, so low that he couldn't figure out if it was hers or not.

He took another step forward, clenching tightly on his gun.

Then another. 

“Fuck,” The voice in the bathroom shouted. “God damn it.”

It was her.

He lowered the gun and hurried across the hallway. He was right–the trail of blood stopped right in front of the bathroom door. He tried the knob. It was locked. 

“Atlas?” He called.

A loud crash, sounds of things dropping to the ground and a string of furious curses.

He flipped the gun around and hacked at the door knob with its grip. His heart pounded violently in his chest, and all he could think of in that moment was _Daisy Daisy Daisy_ , poor, innocent Daisy, robbed of her chance to grow up because of him, because he had failed to be one step ahead; but he wouldn’t be one step too late tonight. He wouldn’t.

He couldn’t. 

_Please God please let me do something this time please let me fix it please God not again_ –

The kid yelled something else behind the door, but he wasn’t listening. 

The piece of steel fell to the the floor with a muffled clang. He kicked in the door. 

All the crimson smeared onto the once-white tiles had painted a morbid, grotesque sight, like something ripped out of a bad slasher film. Their first-aid kit lay empty next to the sink, all of the medical supplies spilled and scattered on the floor, bandages, thermometer, countless labeled bottles and syringes of different sizes…. 

He dropped his gun onto the floor.

He couldn’t even recognize her at first, with her bruised face and lifeless eyes. The kid was on the floor, half-slouching against the bathtub; she’d taken off her blood-soaked shirt, and the black tank top she wore underneath had been pushed up to her chest, revealing the large gash in the middle of her abdomen. She gripped onto it with one bloody, trembling hand, clearly trying to stop the blood flow but failed miserably. 

In her other hand, a threaded needle. 

He couldn't even speak. He didn't know what to say, nor what to do. He just stood there, eyes wide, paralyzed. 

She looked up to him, her face blank and hard, and he already knew what he was going to hear.

 _Don't say it,_ he pleaded silently, _don't say it. Please._

“It’s from a job,” Her voice was horrible, like the choked gasps of a drowning man.

 _This is real,_ he inhaled: _I’m awake. I’m awake._

He rushed to her side and crouched, holding out a hand. She turned to look at him, her swollen eyes struggling to blink, like she was somehow confused about his presence. 

“John,” She choked out his name, and it felt like a stinging slap in the face. 

“I’m here, kid.” He muttered as he pressed his own hand onto her stomach, helping her slow the bleeding. “I’m here.”

Her skin was feverish beneath his fingers, a sickish heat. He felt her stiffened against his touch.

The terror of his dreams came back, for a brief second; and he saw the dying creature in his nightmares, its eyes burning like liquid gold, its shrill cries snuffed by the ashes in its throat; he reached into its chest, crushing its birdlike bones, and he heard the sound of its end, the end of nothing, like a fire drowned, a mirror shattered.... It was easy, it was _so easy_ -

“Why did you come?” He demanded, furious all the sudden, “Hell, why didn’t you go to the Continental first and get this fixed?” He added more pressure on her wound, feeling the blood flow gradually slowed. She let out a low growl, like that of an animal. “Because I was a fucking idiot,” She tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling. “It’s just…. It’s just a scratch. It’s nothing. I’ve had worse. Hey John, do you know where our sterilizer is? Those bastards are always hiding…. Stuff….”

“Stop.” He flinched, his voice tightened around the edge of his throat. “Stop.” 

He would never forget that night when he arrived at Helen’s doorstep with a broken arm and bleeding forehead. “I’ve had worse.” He’d said, then, with a quivering smile on his face, and it had been the first and the last thing he said that night–he never knew what to say to her when she was crying. 

It had been eight years ago.

“Stop,” He whispered, realizing with a sudden terror just how much he sounded like Helen in that moment. “Stop,” She had said to him that night, her voice tight, weak, yet unyielding. Now, after all these years, he finally felt the actual weight of this word on his own tongue, and it was unbearable. 

“John?” The kid frowned at him, a simple expression that seemed so difficult on her bruised face–the visible pain that flashed in her hazel eyes tugged at him like a rusted hook buried in a dying fish’s throat– “John. The sterilizer.”

“Right,” He swallowed and looked away, “It’s in the cabinet. Keep the pressure on your stomach.”

She raised her right hand and slowly covered his hand with hers. He carefully pulled away from underneath, inch by inch. 

There was something wrong with her hand, too. He had never seen something like that before, but he guessed that it was what a human hand would look like if said human accidently stuck her hand in a meat grinder and set the speed on high. Something like broken glass glistened from within her torn knuckles, and he cringed at the thought that she’d probably rammed her fist down in a pile of glass shards repeatedly for all he knew– 

_Wait, she couldn’t have possibly…._

“What happened to your hand?” He asked as he opened the cabinet above the sink. 

“Trust me,” She deadpanned: “You don’t want to know.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong.

“Here’s your sterilizer,” He knelt beside her, “And an anesthesia shot.” He showed her the syringe in his hand. 

“No.” She stared at it, her eyes glassy but hard. “No.”

“What?”

“I said no,” She gritted her teeth, “I don’t need anesthesia.”

_Really? We’re doing this now?_

He thought she was above that.

“Kid,” He said slowly, patiently, “This is not the time.” 

“I said I don’t need it.” 

“This isn’t strength or bravery, kid. This is foolishness. I will not–”

She lunged forward and grabbed his collar with her wounded hand, her fingers trembling but astonishingly strong. The wide cut on her abdomen started bleeding once more. 

“Dammit!” He dropped the bottle and pressed his hand onto her stomach. _Kids…_.

“You listen to me, Jonathan Wick,” She pulled him down to her level and looked him in the eyes, her voice cutting, “This is _my_ fucking house, and when I say I don’t need anesthesia, I don’t need anesthesia. So now, you either close that hole on your face and help me close the hole on my stomach, or you leave my sterilizer and get the fuck out of here. But if you come anywhere near me with that syringe, John, I swear to god I’ll take it and stab you in the fucking eye with it. I swear to god.” She stopped to catch her breath, then added, for good measure: “Try me, bitch.”

He blinked. 

The kid loosened her grip on his collar and pushed him away, holding out the threaded needle in her left hand. “Take it, or _go_.”

He stared at her, baffled, aghast.

“Why are you doing this to yourself?”

“Because it’s the only way,” She breathed, her voice shallow.

“Because I need to feel the pain.” 

He looked into her cold, cold hazel eyes, the eyes like stones but now burned with a kind of manic desperation that sent a shiver down his spine, and he knew, perhaps for the first time since he’d met her, that she had told him the truth. 

He set his jaw and took the needle from her hand.

“Ok,” He inhaled, “Ok.” 

He set the needle aside and carefully shifted closer to her, propping a hand on the edge of the bathtub. 

“I’m going to clean your wound now, kid,” He locked his eyes with hers, “And I need you to hold still.”

*

They barely exchanged a word in the next twenty minutes, except for his occasional “it’s almost over” and “hold on, kid” when he heard her muffled, ragged whimpers.

“There,” He snipped off the rest of the thread with a scissor, “It’s done.”

She said nothing.

He took an alcohol pad and gently wiped away the dried blood around her stitches. “Next time you want to pull a stunt like this, at least not when you have a hole the size of my head on your stomach.” He said, and he said it the way she once had. She didn’t laugh. 

Maybe Helen was right. He really wasn’t as funny as he thought he was.

“It’s thirty million now,” She said quietly after a moment of silence, without looking at him. “I was worried.”

He wished, with all he had left in his heart, that it was a lie; but sometimes wishes were just wishes, and they did not come true.

“I know,” He sat down next to her, his back against the bathtub. “I know, kid.”

“It’s nice to have the house like this. So quiet.” 

“It is,” He agreed.

“Thanks to your dog.”

“They’re afraid of dogs?”

“They’re being polite. They want to leave him a good impression.”

She was quiet again, and he had no idea what he should do with her silence. He just sat there on the bloody bathroom floor, next to a child that almost died for him, and he did nothing. 

“Let me see your hand,” He said, finally.

“Maybe later.”

“Maybe.” He nodded, “You need me to get you anything?”

“No.”

“Aspirin?”

“Why?”

“You’re burning up.”

“A little fever can’t kill. I caught a cold, it’ll pass.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’d probably want to change,” He got to his feet. “I’ll come back later to clean up this mess. You have clothes here, right?”

“Right.”

“I’ll be out there if you need me.” He reluctantly turned and headed for the door. 

“Wait.” She called after him just as he was reaching for the non-existent door knob– _right, we don’t have a door knob now, I hope it wasn’t something important_ – “Yeah?” He turned around, “What is it?”

She looked up to him, the sheer panic in her eyes and her rigid, trembling jaw made her a disturbing sight, and he thought, _my God, she’s just a child._

“I need your help.”


	14. Isaiah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A flashback chapter again! Sorry guys I know that cliffhanger must've been killing you but like I said, flashbacks are important!
> 
> As always, leave your comments below and let me know what you think!

_Six Years ago, in New York_

New York was beautiful, even more so, when in snow. The man in the black overcoat stood up and walked towards the window. Two of his men followed.

“That Saunders boy has some serious nerves,” Said the one on his left, whose name was Isaiah and had his blind right eye covered by a black leather patch. His voice was smooth and his accent was as clean as his three-pieced suit. 

The man in a black overcoat chuckled softly. “Probably,” He watched the snow through the fogged up window with intense and childlike interest.

“He’s a good kid, Isaiah, and his heart is in the right place.” The man in a black overcoat mused: “How unfortunate.”

The young man with a Semi-Auto Beretta had exited the building, and the three of them watched from the window as he strolled down the street, a blurred, shivering shade of gray. When he felt a gentle snowflake land on his forehand, he stopped and looked up to the sky.

The man in a black overcoat raised his hand and drew a circle around the small figure that was Christopher Saunders, clearing the fog on the blurry window with a scrawny finger. 

He smiled. 

“Do we eliminate him, sir?” His Head of Security on the right said, calmly and coldly. 

“No need, Alexander,” The man in a black overcoat waved a hand at him absent-mindedly, “Have three man follow him, and don’t send three of your best. Someone under Lucas will do. Tell them to report straight to you and no one else. If anyone asked, they will say they've been sent to kill Christopher Saunders by my direct order.”

The Head of Security left without a word.

Outside the building, the entire city slowly faded into a silenced heartbeat; the two men standing by the window both listened to the sound, but only one heard its rhythm. 

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” The man in a black overcoat marveled.

“Of course, sir,” said Isaiah Verlas, with his velvety voice and blameless manners. “New York’s winter has arrived with grace, as always.”

His employer, with his sunken, gleaming eyes and crooked smile, shook his head and laughed.  
“No, Isaiah, not the snow.” He turned to his most-trusted personal bodyguard, “It’s the ignorance of men, how they know so little and live so short.”

“Were you referring to the boy, sir? Christopher Saunders? The one you wanted dead so badly but still couldn’t bear to see killed?”

“No,” The man in a black overcoat smiled, a purposeful flash of his sharp teeth, “I was referring to us, the two of us, in this very moment.”

“Us?”

“Yes, my boy. You, me, Christopher, and all those men standing outside of this room who would rather follow us into the darkness than go their way into the light, we are not all that different. Were we not all God’s creature, if there ever was one?”

“There is a God, sir, I assure you, and He is all-seeing.” 

“There is _your_ God, my boy,” The man in a black overcoat looked back to the window, which was fogged all over except for a small, clean-edged circle on the left, “And there is mine, who weareth no face and speaketh with a hollow voice.” He inhaled and closed his eyes. “I can hear his whispers, even now, for he wishes to be heard. Not only by me, his believer, but also by you, Isaiah, a blasphemer.”

“What does this God of yours speak of, sir? What is it that he wishes me to hear?”

“Listen, my child, _listen_.” The man in a black overcoat then put a finger to his own lips, ever so gently, and let silence fell upon the two of them; it piled up quickly, for something so heavy could not be influenced by gravitational force, unlike snow, unlike the fall of a thirty-three-year-old man who weighed a hundred and fifty-eight pounds and a little more. 

Tragedy happens so easily, so fast; everyone dies in the end, and at the end of everyday, people die. 

“What were you thinking about, sir?” The younger man spoke up, after a while.

The man in a black overcoat glanced at his second-in-command and chuckled. “That I might’ve been wrong about you, Isaiah,” His wide grin remained, “We _are_ different, after all. In some ways.” 

“In what ways, sir?”

“You ask too many questions, Isaiah. Let an old man have his secrets, would you?” said the man in a black overcoat, his eyes shining, “I’ve let you keep yours for so long after all, have I not?”

“I don’t understand, sir.”  
“You will,” His employer assured him, the knowing grin never leaving his face. “You will. And you were right, Isaiah, about the snow. It is quite beautiful.” He took a deep breath, reached out and cleared a spot on the blurry window. “Come, Isaiah,” He beckoned to the other man with a scrawny hand. “Come and see.” 

The younger man with a blind eye took a step closer towards the window. His employer put a gentle hand on his shoulder, a convenient gesture of intimacy he’d done a thousand times before. 

“Look down. What do you see?”

“I see New York,” Said Isaiah Verlas, with his soothing voice and undeterred charm. “And I see Winter, in all her dazzling glory.”

His employer, a man in a black overcoat, smiled at this.

“Do you see what she’s missing, Isaiah?” He asked, his hand still on the younger man’s shoulder.

He raised his other hand and, with a kind of appalling tenderness, touched the glass with the tip of his finger. Just a light, soft kiss in the center of that circle he’d drawn a few minutes ago.

“A little bit of red.” The man in a black overcoat said.

And with that, he pressed his finger down on the glass.

 _Into_ the glass. Then the window was gone, the thousand broken pieces falling like snow; and then there was the wind, and it was graceless, violent.

If Isaiah Verlas had noticed the strange glitter on the tip of his employer’s finger, something like diamond, something that could easily shatter a restaurant window with a single touch, he might’ve been able to escape this fate; but that’s the thing with people in a big city with big dreams. They never _watched_. They’re always missing things, something big, something small. When they realized why it mattered, they were already too late.

The man in a black overcoat took a swift step back, then the hand on Isaiah Verlas’s shoulder, the hand that was scrawny but still strong, slid down to his back, and pushed.

This all happened in a matter of seconds, and no one, not even Isaiah Verlas’s God, who was mighty and all-seeing, had saw it coming.

When his body hit the ground below, there would be no sound, but pain. This was the common misconception of falling; _it happens so fast_ , they always said, _you won’t even feel a thing._

The truth is, when you die, you feel _everything_. Death might not be cruel, but he is merciless, and he takes his time.  
Besides, the real torture often begins after a man’s death. 

But Isaiah Verlas didn’t know about that yet; he’d only just gotten to the part where it hurts. Lying face down in the snow, with crimson slowly spreading around his head, you’d think that he was already dead; but there were ones who couldn’t be fooled, such as God, such as the man standing by the window frame, wearing a black overcoat. 

A few blocks away, there was another young man, who went by the name of Christopher Saunders; when he felt something cold press against the back of his neck, he would assume, rightfully, that it was a single piece of snowflake. When he realized that it did not melt nor fell away, he would, eventually, turn around. 

Then finally, Winter, craving all the warmth a wasted life could give, and the snow beneath his feet, hungry for a taste of color, they would rejoice. 

_It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Isn’t it?_

Back in the restaurant, the man in a black overcoat had sat back into his chair. He poured himself half a glass of whiskey.

“Sir,” His Head of Security entered the room, holding a dagger shaped like a hunting knife, “You might want to see this.” He put the dagger down onto the table, just next to his drinking glass. 

“There was a girl. A child.”

The man in a black overcoat said nothing. He took out his handkerchief, carefully wrapped it around the bloody hilt and turned it around.

“Merry Christmas,” He smiled at the dragon sealed in a piece of wood, with its bat-like wings and needly teeth.

“Sir, it’s October.”


	15. The Fever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that it's been AGES since my last update and I'm terribly sorry. School has started and everything went to hell. I'll try my best to update regularly from now on!  
> In this chapter and the next, we'll see more of Atlas' past, from John's POV. Let me know what you think!

“I need your help.”

He looked at her, and he saw it in her eyes– a word unsaid, a word John Wick was too awfully familiar with:

_Please._

He’d heard this word from thousands, the thousands of lives he took. They all said pretty much the same thing, so he rarely let them finish. 

The kid had said the word to him, too. 

He still remembered.

_Because of what happened after. Because I dreamed of that day, over and over_

_(And over again)_

That was such a cold day in Moscow, it wasn’t even September but it was _freezing_ – She was wearing a thin, dusty white gown, her long, fine hair framing her heart-shaped face in tangles; _“Mister? Mister, I’ve not eaten anything since last week– Please….”_

_Please._

He would’ve never suspected a thing. Her Russian was flawless, maybe even better than his.

He remembered trying to walk away; he remembered looking at the filthy little beggar trembling in the vicious wind, thinking, _I don't have time for this._

Six years seemed like such a long, long time, but not really. Not for Death’s very emissary. 

“Tell me what to do.” He heard himself say. 

_Tell me how to fix this._

“Just….” She took a deep breath and physically tensed when it reached her wounded stomach, “Stay. Stay here.” 

_Stay._ He could feel the word choking him, and it hurt, as though he was the one with a bruised throat.

_Stay._

He walked over and carefully sat down next to the kid. “I’m here,” He said quietly. 

_Like that would change anything_ , He felt a sudden, hysterical urge to laugh: Like I could change anything.

She closed her eyes and exhaled.

“John, I need you to…. To keep an eye on me,” She said with difficulty, “You have to stop me when it starts happening. I can feel it now, John. I can hear the noise–”

“Atlas,” He stared at her, baffled, “When _what_ starts happening?”

She didn’t respond. She just sat there, trembling in silence, her breath quick and shallow. 

“Atlas,” He called again, and he could hear something fragile in his voice. 

It was fear. 

“Atlas. Look at me.”

Slowly, she opened her eyes and turned to him.

They were empty.

He looked into those bloodshot hazel eyes, trying to find something– fear, pain, exhaustion– or just a simple sense of stillness– But he found nothing.

“Don’t let me fall asleep,” She said, in frantic whisper: “Don’t go. It has to be you, John– There’s no other way–”

“Kid,” He cut her off, his voice calm, measured: “You have to tell me what’s going on.”

“Promise me you will keep me awake,” She pleaded, but the manic desperation never reached her lifeless eyes. “Promise me you won’t leave.”

It must be the fever, he thought to himself. 

“I promise.” He said, simply. “I promise. I’ll stay.”

_It must be the fever. That’s right, she was–fever talking– it means nothing…._

_Something’s wrong. Something’s very, very wrong._

He could feel it in his bones, a sliver of malice slicing through the messy intervals between their conjoined heartbeats like a kitchen knife, going back and forth, back and forth, opening up the blackened wounds wider and wider and wider until he could see the thing that was growing inside and he saw– He saw–

“I’ll keep you awake,” He added, “I promise.” 

And he meant it, in that moment. He did.

She simply looked at him with her empty eyes, and he watched in silence as the expression on her face slowly melted into mask-like confusion, then to sheer hysteria.

“Oh God,” She whispered to herself– He was oddly relieved when he started to see a faint hint of panic in those hazel eyes– “John…. The dog….”

Of course. Of course she was concerned about the dog.

“Give him to Charon.”

The kid gaped at him. 

He almost laughed. She thought he didn’t know. She thought he wouldn’t be able to figure it out.

“I saw his collar,” he explained: “It was torn.”

The broken leash was a pretty obvious hint too.

She said nothing, only glared at her injured hand.

“Thank you,” He continued after a moment of uncomfortable silence, “For getting him back. But you can't do this again.”

Still nothing.

“Hey. Hey, listen to me.” He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “You can’t do this again, kid. Give him to Charon, you hear me?” 

“Francis Welch.” Her voice was as faint as a whisper, but he caught that familiar name. 

“What?” 

“Francis Welch,” She looked to him and repeated, this time louder: “He wants him.” 

“He…. He was the one who attacked you?” 

That did not sound like Francis Welch, like, at all. A simple ambush was just too…. No, no. “Crude” wouldn’t be the word.

_Tasteless._

“No,” She shook her head. “I met him earlier, at the…. The bar. The Continental Bar. We talked.” 

A “talk” with Francis Welch was never just a talk. He wondered if she knew. She probably did.

“Then give the dog to him.” 

She blinked.

“What?”

“I said,” He repeated, this time slower, “Give him to Welch.”

She just stared at him.

“He likes dogs,” He shrugged, “And he’s rich.”

“Not funny,” She tossed him a dirty look– Which, not so surprisingly, was kind of ruined by the bruises around her eyes, but she tried her best.

“I know,” He replied flatly, “I don’t do funny. I meant what I said– Give my dog to Welch. He’ll take good care of him.”

She opened her mouth. “What about–”

“– No,” He cut her off before she could finish, “We both know that you’re not going to take him to Charon. And he can’t stay with you anymore.”

Begging the Continental to take his dog was about the worst move she could make right now, and she knew it. She wouldn’t risk rousing suspicion. 

“You don’t exactly have a choice,” He said, flatly.

“I always have a choice,” She shot back, “And I don’t trust that smug motherfucker. End of the story.”

“I have a choice, too,” He reminded her, “And in case you forget about this, he is still my dog. Take him to Francis Welch.”

_He is still my dog, and I’m not going to just sit here and let a kid get murdered for my dog._

She glared at him with her almost comically swollen eyes. He glared back.

“Fine,” She muttered under her breath after a while, reluctant, “Fine. He gave me– A card– His number….” She reached into the pocket of her ripped jeans. 

“Where did I– Fuck!” She pulled out a piece of crumpled, completely blood-soaked paper and held it out to him, her expression unreasonably furious. 

_The fever,_ John Wick reminded himself: _She’s still having a fever._

“It’s fine,” He said, “I have his number. I still remember it.” 

She dropped the bloody mess from her hand. 

“He– you– _You have his number?_ ”

“I don't understand this attitude,” he stated patiently, “I’ve worked with a lot of people before. We’re all acquaintances–”

She raised an eyebrow. 

_Oh._

“No,” He sighed, “Not like that.”

“Huh,” She didn’t look thoroughly convinced, “So were you two…. Friends? At least?”

She surprised him with the word “friends”.

“We don’t have ‘friends’, kid,” He just couldn’t resist, “What the– You– Jesus, keep up with this kind of thinking and one day it’s going to get you killed. There are three kinds of people for us in the business, kid: Targets–”

“–Allies,” She stared at her wounded hand, “And competitions.” 

He blinked. “Winston taught you.”

Winston. It all made sense now, how she managed to start out so young: she was a privileged apprentice– It was rare, yes, but not unheard of–

“No,” She shook her head, “Not Winston. It was…. Someone else.” There was a sad look in her eyes, but he could be mistaken.

He wondered who taught her. Who made her what she was today. 

So what is she?

Say it. Say it.

_No._

“You don’t believe it, do you?” Her hoarse voice startled him and brought him out of his thoughts. For good.

“Believe what?” 

“That you have no friend in the business. You know it isn’t true.” There was an odd strain in her tone. She sounded…. Angry. Almost.

“Why wouldn’t I believe it?” He stared at her, baffled, “Don’t you?”

“I do,” She replied matter-of-factly, without hesitation, “But that’s just how it is for me. For the most of us. You, on the other hand…. You’re different.”

“Different?”

“People care about you.”

_It’s definitely the fever._

“People care about me,” He explained patiently, “Because they want me dead.”

“I’m not talking about those people,” She coughed, “I’m talking about someone—someone— John, _how could you_ —” He noticed that she was talking faster, her face reddened and her voice was starting to crack— “ _Take it easy,_ ” He wanted to say, but a strange sense of horror hit him so he just stayed where he was and stared at her and there he went again, not helping at all— _useless_ — She said something else, but he wasn’t listening. He was thinking about her fever , and how bad it could be: _Did she lie to me about her injuries? Of course she did, what a silly, silly question_ — The kid bent forward and broke into a coughing fit, all of a sudden; he had a feeling that she just told him something extremely important, something he missed, but then he realized that he had stopped caring about all that, about _knowing;_ he had had enough of this—what ever this was, a game, or a _big fucking joke_ — 

Yes, that was what it was all along: A joke. All that time he spent, trying to figure this out, trying to figure her out— Why?

_Because—_

Say it.

_Because I wanted to trust her._

In that moment, when he saw the 19-year-old coughing her lungs out on the bathroom floor, the stitches on her stomach began to tear— The stitches he did half an hour ago— It was in that very moment, John Wick realized something he should’ve understand a long time ago: He could never trust her. 

He could never trust her, but that wouldn’t stop him from doing what he was about to do.

He reached out and patted her on her back. 

It was a perfectly natural thing to do: She was coughing, and he was trying to make her feel better. Any random person would’ve done the exact same thing if being put in his position. 

When he saw her tensed up and cringed from his touch, he thought it was because her back was, practically, bare—she didn’t bother pulling down her tank top from her chest, and he doubt it would be of any help if she did since her clothes were all basically torn to shreds in the “car accident”— He was going to say something, an apology or an explanation— “I’m not going to hurt you, kid”—Something like that— But then he saw what was on her back.

And she knew he did. 

She wasn’t coughing anymore; she was laughing.

“Those were where my wings got cut off,” She said to him, and there was, once again, no emotions whatsoever in her voice, in her horrible, broken voice.

He could only stare at the two massive, hideous scars on either side of her spine; he had never seen something like that before, and he had seen a lot. 

They stretched across her entire back— How she managed to hide them so well this whole time, he wondered— And they were swollen, badly, almost like there were spikes growing under the blackened skin. 

No, not skin. It was rough and hard and it cracked, and under the glaring bathroom light it _glistened_ , like…. Like….

(I’m not dreaming this is not a dream)

Like _scales._

“What the….” 

He couldn’t even finish his question.

“Don’t know,” She leaned back to the wall, “Probably born like this.”

“Could be—” He hesitated; he’d always hated the word. “— A trademark.”

It was something people in the business do with kids, kids they bought or seized or—taken in— to train; they put something on them to mark them as their possessions. 

They called it a “trademark”. 

If a kid was being trained to be an assassin, she would be given a tattoo or a tiny scar—something that hurt— “As a reminder,” Viggo once told him, “They need to keep in mind how bad we could hurt them.”—But if they were going to sell her as a child prostitute, they would give her accessories, like a necklace, so it wouldn’t mess up her skin. 

Either way, it would be something she could easily cover up. 

Not like…. _This._

“ _Trademark,_ ” she mocked, laughing her bitter laugh, “No, my back has been like this since I was living with my parents. But god, I wish my trademark was something like that. I really do.” She fell silent and eyed him for a moment.

“You’ve seen my trademark before, John.” She was staring at him in an odd way, like she was expecting him to remember something. “You’ve seen it once.”

If he had seen it, he certainly didn't remember. He knew that she didn't have any real tattoo; she was scarred all over—maybe a little too much for her age, but not unlike everyone else in the business—but nothing stood out, except for the monstrosity sandwiching her spine.

She kept herself unmarked, so people wouldn't have anything to remember her by. 

_What are you running from, kid?_

He could’ve asked her about her trademark, tell her to show it to him again, but he got a feeling that it was something he should remember himself. So instead, he said the first thought on his mind, and he said it outloud, like an idiot:

“You have _parents?_ ”

He didn’t know why the fact that she hadn’t exactly been an orphan all her life came as such a shock to him.

The concept just didn’t seem right. 

“Wh…. Why of course,” She blinked, confused—and probably pissed off— “Of course I had parents. What, did you think I hatched from an egg?

Funny she should say that— In fact, he actually did. 

He tried to imagine her childhood, imagine her as a five-year-old girl under someone else’s wings, imagine her being tucked away in some place safe, protected. 

He realized he couldn’t.

She was never like that.

For some reasons, John Wick thought of the stories he’d heard as a little boy, stories about dragons. About their tragic births and tragic deaths. 

_An egg hatched, in the middle of nowhere, and the dragon was born._

_And then it was alone._

It’s scales were softer than velvet, the wings crisp like frostbitten leaves, and it was alone. There were treasures surrounding it, gold and emeralds and rubies and things mortal men wouldn’t dare to dream of; but all the gold and silver were colder than the night after the sun went down, and the precious stones cut deeper than knives against its days-old skin. There was fire in its chest, but the flames would not speak to it, so it never knew warmth. 

Then the men with swords came, to slay the lonely beast. 

If it lived through the day, it would curl up in the dark, freezing cave and lick its own wounds with the feverish forked-tongue that knew not a song; it didn’t know pain, but it wished to stop hurting. Then the next day, they came again, this time with bigger swords.

If it died, then it died. It would go out the way it came into the world:

Alone.

“Do you ever wonder what happened to them, John?” Her voice seemed to come from afar.

“Who?”

“Your parents.”

Of course. Of course she knew that he was born an orphan. Not a lot of people knew about this, but he already could tell that she had sources.

“Not really,” He said to her, and it was the truth. “Do you?”

“No,” She shrugged, “I already know what happened to them.”

He nodded. “Killed?”

“Shot,” She replied, her expressions neutral and her voice unsettlingly nonchalant, “Separately. Father died first. I was six-year-old.” She stared into the air in front of her and whispered: “I thought I saved her. I thought we could be free.”

It didn’t took him long to figure out what she meant.

“You killed him.” It wasn’t a question— Or an accusation. Just a statement.

“He would never hurt us again,” Her eyes were dazed; John Wick wasn’t even sure if she  
acknowledged his presence. 

The fever must be bad. 

“Your father was an abuser.” Again, wasn’t a question.

“I remember the pain,” She whispered, “I remember her cries. She tried to protect me, but then she got sick. She was so sick she couldn’t even stand.” She looked up to the white ceiling. “He’s never stopped the beating, though. Not for a single day.”

John felt something growing in his chest, choking his words. 

He realized that it was anger. 

“You had no choice,” He said quietly.

She laughed. “No,” Her face betrayed no emotions, “I had one choice. And I chose to protect my mother.” 

She lifted her injured hand and formed a finger gun with difficulty.

“I chose to pull the trigger.” She lazily fired an invisible bullet into the air.

“He was my first task. I thought my hands would shake—he didn’t let me eat for two days—but they were perfectly steady. My aim was terrible, though. Took me five shots to get his head.”

“Then somebody found you, didn't him? And he said he could help you. He said he wanted to help.” He'd heard this story too many times, about how children got recruited; about their deals with the Devils, and how it was all too late when they finally saw the truth.

“Oh, he already helped;” She closed her eyes: “He gave me a choice.”

“He gave me a gun.”


	16. Sunrise

_Six years ago, in New York_

“104°F,” The young Head of Security announced, passing the damp thermometer to a bodyguard standing nearby. 

The girl sat perfectly still.

It seemed like everyone in the room was, more or less, disturbed by the girl’s presence, by her bloodied face, her empty eyes, or perhaps the freshly-severed head of Christopher Saunders sitting in her lap, turning her once-white, stolen hospital gown a darker shade of red; well, everyone except for the man sitting opposite her, the man in a black overcoat.

“I see you got my message,” He glanced at the head, “You can put that on the table in case your legs fall asleep, by the way. I’m not too big of a fan of the mahogany myself.”

“And you got mine,” The girl looked to the shattered window behind their table.

“Ah, yes,” He grinned, “ ‘The one-eyed man’.” The man in the black overcoat turned to his Head of Security, “See? Didn’t I tell you we would find the mole sooner or later, Alexander?”

The younger man had a stone-like expression on his face. A strand of his sandy hair fell in front of his eyes, but he pay it no mind.

“How long have you known?” He said after a moment of silence, his voice flat. 

“What, about Isaiah’s unwise decision to betray us?” The man in a black overcoat shrugged, careless and distracted, “Half an hour ago. In this very room.”

“That’s not possible,” The younger man frowned, “I was here. How did–”

“–I told him.” The girl didn’t turn to look at him, “I know you were here, Alexander Kaelen Hart. I saw you.”

“What?” He stared at the girl like she just slapped him.

“I was looking through the window,” She still didn’t turn, “I used my knife to rap on the glass. Morse code. ‘The one-eyed man,’ That’s what it said.” 

She added after a moment of consideration, “Because I didn’t know his name. Isaiah, was it? Like in the Bible. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.’ ”

“I heard you’ve memorized the entire Bible, child,” The man in the black overcoat chimed in, “Just out of curiosity, how's your Hebrew?”

The girl recited Isaiah 1:18 again, this time in its original language.

“Beautiful,” He grinned, “Now, child, would you like something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”  
He paused for a second then shrugged, “Vodka?”

“You didn’t even know his name,” Alexander Kaelen Hart’s throaty voice was now but a taut whisper, just loud enough for the three of them to hear. “You didn’t know his name, yet you felt like you have the right to accuse him?” His eyes fixed on the girl’s back, just on the very spot through which a bullet could shatter the spine and penetrate her heart in one single shot. 

Slowly, the girl stood up from the velvet chair. The lifeless head of Christopher Saunders rolled onto the floor with a wet, muffled thud.

“Child,” The man in a black overcoat called, his voice lazy but measured. 

The girl turned around and started her way towards the Head of Security. One step. Two steps. 

He had his gun in his hand before he’d even realized it. 

“Alexander,” The man in a black overcoat sighed. 

“Sit down,” The gun was now up against her head. She said nothing, only took another step forward until the cold, hard barrel was pressing into the spot between her eyebrows. 

She looked up at the Head of Security with her feral eyes, cocking her head to one side and frowned.

“You trusted him, didn’t you? The one-eyed man.” 

“That’s enough,” Alexander Kaelen Hart growled, tightening his grip on the gun.

“You left your master with him. Alone. You trusted him, Alexander Kaelen Hart,” She whispered, “How does it make you feel, losing him? Does it hurt? Will you mourn?”

He stared at her, and it would be long before he finally noticed the scorching sensation clawing at his throat, before he realized that this was

(This is what fear feels like and you’re afraid _you’re so afraid_ )

“The dragon,” He breathed, realization dawning, “You’re her. You’re the one they’re after.”

‘Glad we have that established,” The man in a black overcoat deadpanned from his seat, impatient, “Anyhow, we should get on with what’s really important– I know you’re still struggling with the concept of time, child, but just think of it as a luxury that we couldn’t afford at the moment.” 

The girl didn’t budge an inch.

“Alexander, take her temperature again.”

The Head of Security hastily put away his gun and signaled to the three bodyguards standing by the door. One of them stepped forward and handed over the thermometer. 

“She’s sick,” He said to the man in a black overcoat while waiting for her temperature to be taken, “It’s not safe to be around her now, sir. She could’ve been injected with something. The place she came from, you know what they do to the kids there. They treat them like lab rats.”

His boss grinned. “Not this one.” He raised his glass and took another sip of his whiskey, “Rest assured, Alexander. Her physical health is not to be concerned; the body temperature is merely a reflection of something not within our reach, and we need it just like Perseus needed his shield to slay the gorgon Medusa. Reflections aren’t dangerous, Alexander, unlike misguided fear or paranoia– both of which you’ve been displaying a lot more often lately. I’m worried about you, my boy.”

“Sir–”

“I know, I know. You’re my Head of Security, your paranoia is, on certain level, justified; but when you exceed that level, it becomes distrust. Tell me, Alexander,” He rubbed his index fingers along the rim of the glass, “Do you trust me?”

“Yes, sir,” The younger man said, without a moment of hesitation.

The man in a black overcoat beckoned him to come closer with a lazy flick of his wrist. 

“Then kill them,” He whispered into Alexander Kaelen Hart’s ear, gesturing to the three bodyguards standing by the door, three men that were loyal, blameless, three men with families to go back to, three men whose stories would no longer be told.

“Kill them all.” 

************************************

“But did you do it?”

6:30 am. He had kept her awake through the night. John wasn’t exactly sure what he should’ve done, so he just talked. Then he let her talk. Sometimes her words made no sense, but he listened anyway.  
Half way through their conversation, he stood up and started giving his dog a bath, trying to get the dried blood and chunks of meat out of his coat.  
“Sorry, keep talking,” He told her while struggling to keep his pitbull in the bathtub, “Where were we…. Oh, your mother got killed. Right. Continue…. Stay, god dammit!”

Now the three of them were sitting together with the dog wrapped in a large towel, smelling like fresh camomile; he tried to rest his head on the kid’s stomach, but John convinced him to come to his side. “Watch the stitches,” He warned her, “No pressure on the wound.”

Truth be told, he was just jealous. Petty, he knew, but he couldn’t help it.  
He was _his_ dog first. This wasn’t fair.

“No.” She chuckled, shaking her head. “I didn’t kill him—not because I wasn’t capable, mind you—you thought I got in the business for revenge?”

“He killed your mother,” He shrugged, “He helped you get rid of your abuser, made you promises, took you in, trained you, then he betrayed you. Wanting revenge sounds perfectly reasonable to me.”

If she’d chosen to walk down this path of vengeance, she wouldn’t be the first. A lot of kids started out the same way, but few of them made it to the final prize. 

In fact, this business of theirs was built on the corpses of the youth, those with their naive hopes and empty fury; they lost something, they felt the pain, and then they saw red. 

But at the end of the day, none of them were strong enough. 

After all, they were just…. Kids. 

“Probably,” She stared at her bruised right hand, “No offense, but revenge is kind of…. What’s the expression…. Overrated. In my opinion, that is.” 

_You don’t say,_ he almost laughed. 

“Me and him, it’s not that simple. He took something from me. I want it back.”

She swallowed, putting down her hand. 

“He gave me something, too. A gift, as he would call it. But I want him to take it back. I don’t need him dead, John. I _need_ him. I need to find him.” 

John didn’t know what to say, so he just nodded and held his dog closer. The dog reluctantly rested his head on his lap.

 _I’ve heard too much,_ he thought, absent-mindedly stroking the dog on his back, _it’s her life. There’s nothing I can do about it._

The kid was having a fever, that was the only reason she would open up to him; she wasn’t in her right mind, and he took advantage of that. He could feel the guilt in his throat; and as someone who once butchered strangers for a living, _guilt_ was definitely not an emotion John Wick would be familiar with.

 _If Helen was here,_ he thought, _she’d probably punch me in the face._ John shuddered at the thought of his wife’s nasty right hook. 

_If only I could help—_

_Wait._

“Your boss,” He turned to her, “Your—master, do you have his birth name? Or a nick? What did he look li—”

“— Is the sun up?” She said abruptly, cutting him off mid-sentence.

“What?”

“The sun, John,” She looked distracted, “Is it up?”

“Yes, but—” 

“Good,” She perched her left hand on the wall behind them to support her weight and stood up with difficulty. He quickly followed. 

“Easy,” He reached for her arms to help.

“ _Don’t._ ” The kid suddenly snapped and took a step back. He noticed that her once glazed eyes had cleared; they were languid and blood-shot, but still as sharp and sober as ever. 

_She’s back,_ he let out a sigh of relief; _She’s ok._

“I mean, I’m totally fine. Like, a solid 15 out of 10. Don’t worry.” She relaxed a little, still eyeing him carefully; “Can you, um, hand me the thermometer?”

He bent down, rummaged in the first-aid kit for a while, then gave it to her.

She took her own temperature in silence.

“Thank God,” The kid whispered at the thermometer a few minutes later, “Fucking finally.”

“How was it?”

“None of your concern,” She replied flatly, hoisting her duffle bag onto her grazed shoulder with a painful expression on her face, flung on her leather coat , then staggered out of the bathroom. 

“Has it gone down?” He followed her into the living room. 

“Yes.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m leaving.” She gritted her teeth and slammed her elbow into the window again. 

It didn’t break.

“It’s stuck,” He pointed out helpfully.

“I noticed,” She picked up a paperweight from the table, took a few steps back and—

“Hey, hey. Stop.” He grabbed her wrist before she threw it out, “Kid, stop.” 

She let go of the paperweight and it fell conveniently onto his left toe. _Son of a bitch._ Tears welled up in his eyes. He suppressed his urge to scream, took a deep breath and spun the kid around to face him.

“Why don’t you use the door, kid?”

She looked at him like he was an idiot. 

“Because there are 6 surveillance cameras across the street, idiot. I would’ve disabled it if I was planning on stopping by.” She added, after a few seconds of awkward silence: 

“And I wasn’t.”

“What about the dog?”

“Let him out from the back door 20 minutes later. There’s only one camera that could possibly catch him from there, I’ll go and disable it in the meantime.”

“Ok,” He nodded, “Fine.” He walked around her to the window and grabbed the rusted metal frame, lifting it up a fraction. It let out a grating creak. 

“You don’t have to break it, ” He slowly pushed open the window, “Just hold it like this, then it’ll move just fine.”

“It’s my house,” She muttered under her breath as she was walking past him, “I’ll do whatever the hell I want with the damn windows.”

She grabbed the window frame with her uninjured hand and leaped over the edge, slightly limping but still nimble.

“You said you needed me.” He called after her just before she disappeared from his sight.

She froze in a kneeling position, with an ankle hooked around the brass handle of the window. 

He couldn’t stop himself.

“You said…. You told me to stay.” He stared at her back, covered by a layer of worn leather— But he already knew what was underneath. He’d seen it, her stigmata, her sacrilege.

“You told me to keep you awake.”

“I did.” She replied, matter-of-factly.

“Then where are you going?”

“I’m going to get some fucking sleep,” And with that, she let go of the frame and jumped.

He stepped forward to close the windows. 

A loud crash. Sounds of glass shattering. Car alarm.

“SON OF A BITCH—”

He stuck his head out and looked down. The kid scrambled to her feet, raised her arms above her head and gave him a thumbs up. 

“I’m fine!” She shouted at the window, “I slipped, but I’m fine!” 

She shook off the broken glass on her shirt and limped across the street.

He closed the window, mentally wincing at the agonizing shriek of the metal frame.

Something warm and wet touched his shin. He looked down. It was his dog. The white towel was still covering the upper-half of his face and his back, looking like a somewhat shitty Halloween ghost costume. 

John Wick looked back to the window, at the dirty, frosted glass, the rusted metal frame marked with the kid’s bloody fingerprints, and whispered to himself: 

“What the fuck?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been months since my last update, but college life was literal hell and I was an absolute mess.  
> In this chapter we get another flashback, pay attention cause they're important! For those who've stayed with me since day 1, I love you guys, and I will continue to write until it's the last chapter. Leave your comments and let me know what you think!


	17. Caramel Milkshake

“I don’t know if you’ve heard,” I licked the whipped cream off my straw, “But I don’t _negotiate_.” 

The man sitting uncomfortably in front of me, who clearly wasn’t used to the idea of getting in a suit or a pair of remotely formal shoes, gave me his best irritated glare—which was nowhere near my level, but props to him for trying.

I snatched a piece of sandwich from his plate and bit down. Mmm, pulled pork.

His glare intensified.

“What?” I said between bites, “It’s not like you were going to _eat_ it.”

On a brighter note, this wasn’t a completely horrible way to spend an evening. The cafe looked atrocious, but at least the food was good. Besides, I was never one to pass on a free meal— it wasn’t my fault that the caramel milkshake _he_ decided to order for me just happened to be the most expensive item on the menu. I slurped my drink, loudly, just to piss him off.

“We’re asking you to reconsider,” He reluctantly pushed his plate towards me. “Think about it.”

“You think about it,” I pointed to him with a piece of sandwich, “I— don’t think. It’s bad for my health.”

“40 thousand,” He gritted his teeth: “That’s my line.”

“ _Your_ line,” I swallowed the food in my mouth, “Not your boss’. Call him.”

He took another deep breath. What, was he hyperventilating? What should I do, puncture his lungs? 

“42 thousand,” He had a pained look on his face, “And we’ll cover the plane tickets. _Both_ of them.”

I sat back in my chair and smiled at him. “Go fuck yourself.”

He let out a theatrical sigh. “Look, Ashley— Can I call you Ashley?”

“It’s _may_ I, you uncultured swine,” I deadpanned, “And no, you may not, because that’s not my fucking name. Guess again.”

“Look, kid.” He gave up, “I don’t like this anymore than you do, but—” 

“Actually,” I interrupted, “I rather enjoyed your company. Don’t look down on yourself. I only have, like, two friends, and one of them, as you can see, is a dog—” Said dog howled under the table, excited by the mention of his name— “So, yeah, thank you for hanging out with me, and for your generous offer of an exclusive oversea contract worth _500 thousand_ —”

“— You listen to me, kid,” He leaned in and rested his elbows on the table. Oh look, he was trying to intimidate me. How adorable.

“I don’t know why my superior sent me for you—”

“—Because he _didn’t,_ you moron, otherwise you would’ve at least known my bloody name—”

“—But I’ve been incredibly patient. Don’t push your luck. I know how kids new to the business are; you all think you’re _special_. Eager to make a name for yourself. What we’re offering here, is an opportunity for you to prove your worth. I’m sure that if I call my superior right now and tell him about your uncooperative attitude towards our offer, we could easily find someone else in less than five minutes who are willing to do the job— someone older, more experienced, and talks less.”

I wondered how many times did he practice this speech in front of his mirror. I would’ve slow clapped if I wasn’t busy choking on my sandwich.

He didn’t just forget my name. He had absolutely no idea who I was. None. _Nada._

_Wow._

“I know what it’s like, kid,” He sat back, victory gleaming in his eyes and beginning to look more and more pleased with himself by the seconds—he must’ve misinterpreted the surprise on my face.

“I know. It’s tough, being a teenager and a freelancer at the same time in our world. Must be a lot of pressure. And judging by the looks of it—” He glanced at my bruised forehead and the multi-layered bandage on my right hand, “—You haven’t quite figured out how to handle yourself yet, I see. But don’t worry, you’ll get there one day; you’re still young, you have a long way to go. How long have you been in the business exactly? Two months? Two weeks?”

Oh, you poor, poor soul, what have you gotten yourself into?

I inhaled and smiled at him. 

“Six years.” 

His eyes widened. _That’s right, bitch. I’ve been in this longer than you. Now shut the fuck up and let me talk._

“Look, Kevin— may I call you Kevin? ” I slowly leaned into him and reached across the table. He drew back almost immediately, startled.

“Here’s the thing, Kevin— You’ve been played. I don’t know what they have against you _exactly_ , but this meeting, it’s a mistake. Well, aside from the milkshake you ordered. It’s delicious.” I grinned at him, flashing the edge of my teeth. 

He blinked, unsure how to react.

“You said you wanted to find someone else? Someone more _suitable_ for the job? Then go, nothing’s stopping you. But I can guarantee, Kevin, that if you go back to your boss empty handed and tell him about our pleasant little chat, he would not hesitate to cut off your tongue with that beloved letter opener of his and make you eat it. I’ve seen him do it once, it wasn’t a pretty sight— The blade’s kind of blunt, you know, so he had to rip it off with his hand half way through.” I stopped for a few seconds to let it sink in, then added: “He still has that letter opener, doesn’t him?”

He gulped. “Yes,” 

“Told him to get rid of it,” I sighed, “He just wouldn’t listen. I mean, it’s filthy, and it’s not like he didn’t know Marta’s at that age where she’d put everything shiny in her mouth.”

He visibly paled at the mention of the name of his three-year-old _signorina_. 

“Now, Kevin,” I sat back and put my feet up on the table, “You’re going to pick up your phone. And you’re going to call him. Go on.”

He picked up his phone. _Good boy._

It rang. 

He stared at the screen.

It rang again.

“You should probably get that,” I suggested. 

He tapped the screen and put the phone to his ear. 

“What’s taking so fucking long?” Luciano’s familiar italian accent bursted through the speaker. 

“My apologies, sir,” He swallowed, his face turning an interesting shade of grey. “We’re almost done.”

“No we’re not! ” I yelled across the table.  
Luciano screamed something else in italian that I didn't catch. 

“42 thousand,” He replied, his voice wrung thin by panic, “I swear, sir, I wasn’t going to go this high— I offered 25, but she insisted—”

“—Kevin?” I called. “Stop talking.”

There was a moment of dead silence on the other end. 

3, 2, 1….

A string of italian swear words erupted in full force. Kevin held the phone away from his ear, staring at the phone in sheer horror as if it could grow out a full set of teeth and bite his head off any second. 

I slurped my milkshake. It had gone warm by now, but still delicious. 

The furious cursing went on non-stop for another minute before Luciano stopped to catch a quick breath. Not his best record, but not bad for a 67-year-old heavy smoker either.

“Give her the phone,” I heard him complain loudly when the phone was passed across the table: “Useless scum, I have to do everything myself.”

“Luciano,” I put the phone to my ear. “It’s been a long time.”

“Kid,” He greeted, “Listen, you have to forgive an old man. I have no idea who sent that idiot. I’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise.” 

I glanced at Kevin. If he passed out right now on the table, it would be problematic, and I’d have no one to pay the bill for me.

“Don’t bother,” I sighed. “Luciano, you know me. I’m more than willing to give you a special discount— ” That was a lie, of course, I never gave anyone any discounts ever “—but 25 thousand for an european contract is downright insulting. I have a reputation to keep.” And a very, very unfortunate history with my home country—which was why I wasn’t planning on taking the job. 

That, and the fact that I technically just got run over by a motorcycle twenty hours ago. I wasn’t really up for a challenge right now, not when I had one completely useless hand wrapped in bandages and a second head growing out of my first one. Europe? Jokes on him, I’m not going anywhere near England like this. End of discussion. 

“Hey, um, by the way….” I tried to sound as casual as I could manage, “Where, pray tell, in the vast continent of Europe does this contract require me to go?”

“Eh,” Luciano cleared his throat, “It’s not exactly _in_ the continent—”

“—Cyprus? Is it Cyprus? I can do Cyprus—”

“—It’s at Manchester.”

Son of a bitch. 

“No.”

 _And_ he had the audacity to huff in frustration. Why was I not surprised.

“Name your price.” 

Quick question, how do one digitalize the emotion of “go fuck yourself”?

“No.” 

“Why not?”  
What, he thought _I_ owed _him_ an explanation? “Eh, I don’t know, Luciano, because of the air quality? _What do you fucking think?_ Is this what they called the Alzheimer’s or are you just feeling like being a straight up _stronzo_ this fine October evening—”

Kevin got even paler watching me go off on his boss. I grimaced, reassuring him with a set of facial expressions I called “remotely inconvenienced but perfectly functionable”. 

It didn’t help.

“I’m not doing it,” I said as I pulled the phone away from my ear, “I’m going to hang up right now. Take care, Luciano. Or don’t, whatever. Like I’d give a _fuck_.” 

Kevin seemed like he wanted to say something to improve the situation, but after seeing the look I gave him, decided it in his best interest to remain silent.

“Three million.” 

My index finger froze an inch above the End Call button.

“Hello? Kid? You still there?”

I slowly raised the phone and put it back to my ear.

I swallowed. “The name of the contract?”

“You’re thinking about it aren’t you. There’s my good little prodigy.” I could almost _hear_ his smirk. 

I gritted my teeth. 

“The name, Luciano,” I demanded again.

He sighed. “You know it doesn’t work like that, Atlas. I told you, if you would just consider working for me—”

“— _You_ tell me what I know, ” I growled, “A minute ago, I knew you were smarter than some _coglione_ who’d offer me a contract in fucking _Manchester_ , yet here we are.” 

I, indeed, knew it didn’t work like that. Being a teenager in the business meant you were shifty and unreliable; being a freelancer meant that you would always remain an outsider, and being a _teenage freelancer_ meant that absolutely no one was going to tell you shit. Not before you accepted the job offer, signed your name, reported back to the operator, bathed yourself in the blood of ten virgins, make a human sacrifice to the ancient Gods, mortgaged your soul to the eighth circle of hell and proved your trustworthiness. Telling me the exact country in which the target was located was already a foot pass the line; to get the name of the contract from Luciano was, at best, wishful thinking. 

But. Three million. If Luciano was desperate enough to waste a three million contract on me, I needed to find out why. 

“I give you the name, and you accept the job.” His accent was getting thicker—a sign of nervousness. I had a bad feeling about this.

“No,” I deadpanned, “You give me the name, then _I_ will decide what to do with the information. We’re playing this by my rules now.”

Kevin put his face in his hands.

“Your rules, kid? Since when?” Luciano snorted.

“Since the word ‘Manchester’ came out of your mouth,” I urged, “Now, Luciano. The name. Or I’m hanging up.”

“Wait.”

He inhaled. “It’s Cadmus Grey.”

I ended the call. 

Kevin stared at me. I stared back and raised an eyebrow.

“No one hangs up on him. No one.” He whispered, horrified.

“Well,” I passed his phone back to him, “You’ll get used to it.”

Actually, he wouldn’t. This was my first time hanging up on Luciano too. 

_Cadmus Grey._

Now I knew why it had to be me. 

_This slimy, back-stabbing, pineapple-pizza-loving son of a bitch—_

The phone rang in Kevin’s hand. I snatched it from him, rejected the call then pulled his contact page up to block Luciano’s number. 

“Here you go. You’re welcome.” I tossed his phone back to him. It hit him square on his chin.

I looked up.

The man was paler than the napkin clutched in his fist. His lips wobbled; he looked like he could burst into tears any second.

Maybe I should pull out my dagger and start beheading random diners just to make a point. 

I pushed my empty milkshake glass away and sighed.

“Two.”

He lifted his head so fast I thought he was going to get himself a whiplash. “What?”

“You have questions,” I shrugged: “I’ll answer two.”

He looked down again and swallowed. “I’m sorry,” He started, “I didn’t— I didn’t know.”

No shit. 

“Alright, out with it,” I swung my feet off the table and sat up straight, “It was Simmons, wasn’t it?”

He only dared to give a single nod.

“What monstrous idiocy have you accomplished to piss off Luciano’s little pet? Fucked up the latte art on his morning coffee? On second thought, don’t answer that.” 

Of course it was Simmons. Over 70% of the rookies working for Luciano died on his hands; if I agreed to let Luciano “take me in” all those years ago, I’ve no doubt I’d have already ended up in that pile of bodies by now. Simmons was shrewd, ruthless, spoiled-rotten, and no doubt a handful of trouble; but he was also Luciano’s nephew, the personnel director of Luciano’s mob empire, and he sure as hell knew how to hold a grudge.

“Let me guess,” I pinched the bridge of my nose, “He sent you to ‘fetch’ me without giving you any background information? Because I ‘wasn’t anyone important’?”

“He, um, didn’t exactly phrase it like that—”

“—Don’t tell me what he said about me, I’d rather not know,” I shook my head. Simmons had gone too far this time. He probably didn’t know that, but Luciano wouldn’t let him get away with anything forever.  
He was forcing his hand.

Kevin inhaled and set his jaw. “Maybe if I tell him what Simmons did—”

“Why on _earth_ would you want to do that?” I scoffed, “You really thought Luciano was so blinded by _fatherly love_ that he has no fucking clue about the shit Simmons’ done? Luciano doesn’t have a soft spot for family—he has a soft spot for _children_ , not some bratty 34-year-old. Simmons is a pawn, you bloody moron. Luciano would have to deal with him himself sooner or later, but right now the noose is around your sad little neck— not because you failed, but because you got _tricked_ into failing.” I paused, waiting for him to process.

“So…. Those people he framed before….”

“They were never framed, you simpleton. I’ll say this once, and you will remember this unless you want to end up like all the others: Your job isn’t to expose Simmons, but to _survive_ him. That bastard is natural selection, Kevin. That’s the only reason Luciano kept him for all these years.” _But not for long_. And when Luciano finally gets rid of him, I’ll be popping the biggest bottle. Of soda. Because I wasn’t of legal drinking age.

“Now, your first question. Be quick, if you will. I’m running late.”

There was a moment of silence.

“What should I do?”

Surprise surprise: There was some hope for him after all. 

“What you should do,” I leaned in and locked my eyes with his, “Is calm the fuck down. Stop shaking like a broken washing machine, you’re making me dizzy. Good. When you feel like you’re ready, go back to Luciano.” 

He was definitely hyperventilating right now.

“Luciano will summon you. Now I assume you’ve never been in his office before—right, of course.That’s above your paygrade. When you get there, knock twice on the door and go straight in. _Don’t_ start apologizing right away like some babbling idiot. Let him speak first. It may take a while, but keep your mouth shut. If you accidentally made a sound, chances are he would throw something at your head—and he keeps a 2.5 under his desk, so get ready to duck.” 

Was he fucking…. Taking _notes_ on the napkin? Bloody hell, where did Luciano even find this guy?

“.... Anyway,” I inhaled and rubbed my temple with a finger, “He’s going to ask you questions. About me. Don’t hesitate when you answer; stand up straight and look him in the eyes as you speak. When he asks you if you know who I was, tell him ‘No, sir, but she’s good. We should recruit her.’ If he then goes on a rant about how he’s been trying to recruit me for years and what a stubborn little shit I’ve been, tell him to get rid of me.”

He looked up from his napkin, his eyes wide. “What?”

I’d thought that he probably started working yesterday, but now I was seriously starting to suspect that he was born yesterday. 

“You heard me,” I deadpanned, “You want to live or not? Look Luciano in the fucking eyes and say, ‘If we can’t have her on our side, kill her while we still can.’ Boom. Ass saved. You’re welcome.”  
I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest. “That’s one. Now, the second question.”

He stared at me. Something in his gaze changed; he no longer looked like a man who was confused and terrified. 

He looked like someone who’d only just realized that he actually, genuinely fucked up this time.

“Who are you?” He finally managed to ask.

If we’d started the meeting with this instead of “We’re paying you 25 thousand to go to Europe, kid, how cool is that huh”, things could’ve gone very differently. 

“I’m Atlas,” I tossed the rest of the sandwiches under the table. The dog inhaled them loudly and happily. “But you might know me by another name— _La ragazza allevata dai lupi_.” The girl raised by wolves. Luciano gave me this name after witnessing my “unfortunate dining etiquette” five years ago; in my defense, I hadn’t eaten for two days before that particular meal. I’d tried to convince him to drop it, but he considered it “vaguely threatening and mostly hilarious”, which he claimed a very accurate description of me, so I guessed it just stuck. 

Luckily, few people seemed to share his sense of humor. 

“ _Le petite dragon?_ ” He whispered under his breath, his eyes wide. I gave him a toothy grin.

“Thanks for the milkshake, Kevin,” I reached under the table to grab my duffle bag and the dog leash. “Be seeing you. Tell Luciano I missed the girls—if you manage to live that long.”

I stood up and started my way to the door. 

“Wait,” He called after me. I kept walking.

“Is that really John Wick’s dog?”

A waitress with her green hair pulled back into a ponytail held out the bill and stopped me on my way out. “It’s on him,” I told her without turning back.

The automatic door slid open. I stepped outside, fumbling in my pocket for the buzzing phone. It better not be Luciano—I told him to lose my number, dammit….

“ _Ka-Ching!_ ” Behind me, someone else’s phone chirped. I glanced over my shoulder. A man in his mid-forties, leaning on the other side of the door frame. He opened his flip phone with one hand, taking the freshly-lit cigarette from his mouth with the other. 

He grinned. 

He lifted himself away from the door frame. He was taller than I'd expected, and as he dumped the cigarette on the ground and stepped on it, I could see the inside of his coat.

He had a gun.

I quickly averted my eyes when he threw a glance my way, and caught sight of the young woman reading on a bench nearby look down to check her phone; she turned her head, and the thick, long hair fell passed her shoulders, exposing her neck. 

I would recognize that scar anywhere. _No, no, no…._

One by one, text message alerts from different phones sounded all around me.

For a second, everything in this city stopped. 

My bandaged hand trembled as I held up the phone.

A text message from an unknown number:

_UPDATE CONTRACT_  
JOHN WICK  
100 MILLION USD 

Winston’s voice rang in the back of my head.

_Did you know, child, that New York holds the highest density of assassins in the entire world? One out of every three people you make eye contact with on the streets could be your colleague, so remember—smile and wave, child._

_Smile and wave._

I didn’t even make it pass three blocks before the first gunshot went off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, leave your comments and let me know what you think!


	18. A Choice to Make

Having been freshly and officially unemployed just weeks ago, the legend of the entire assassin underworld had, finally—as he’d quote—“Run out of fucks to give”; that being said, right now he’d like to sit down with someone—anyone—and indulge himself in a rather out-of-character behavior.  


He’d like to complain.

About, like, literally _everything._

Including the Asian woman attacking him with a pocket knife right now and the two shots she fired at him just a minute ago, of course; but he figured he’d get to those later on.

Now, he wanted to complain about some other things, such as his unfortunate reputation as “the man, the myth, the legend”, and all its consequences he had to suffer; one of those consequences, not so surprisingly, was the popular misconception that he, Jonathan Wick, as a regular human person, would always be undoubtedly and unconditionally _right._  


That he would always…. Have a plan.

Naturally, they’d have expected him to have it all figured out when he reached behind the closet for that Kavlav armor the kid left him, emptied the drawers of guns and ammos and tied two switchblades to his ankles, when he glanced at the landline for one last time, as he tried to convince himself— _just one last time, then I’ll turn away, I’ll stop thinking about calling her and hearing her voice for just_  


_(One last time)_

_I’ll look one last time, because maybe then—maybe, just maybe—_

Maybe, just maybe, he would let the thought of Atlas Greene and her big, terrible hazel eyes change his mind.

The Baba Yaga everyone knew and—no, not _loved,_ probably not—would’ve had his next two weeks planned and thought out long before that, before he eventually unplugged the phone to get rid of the temptation of dialing her number, and proceeded to fish out the one jacket in his pile of unwashed clothes whose textile was hard enough to hide the guns strapped to his lower back; if not, he was expected to have come up with at least an outline of some sort by the time he opened the door and stepped into the streets of New York.

The truth was, he had absolutely no idea what he was doing, why he’d done it, or what he would do…. What he _could_ do.

John was prone to bad life decisions, this much he knew; but this wasn’t even a decision. He didn’t decide. He didn’t think.

He just did it.

Come to think of it, the naive mistake of idolizing John Wick was probably the real reason why so many rookies never survived their first few years in the business. _Well don’t look at me,_ he thought, a bit indignant; just because he did things with _“focus, commitment and sheer will”_ , didn’t mean he _knew_ what he was doing. And just because things usually turned out quite alright for him, didn’t mean that what he did wasn’t batshit crazy or just plain stupid; as for the move of taking a swing at his assaulter right after knocking the knife out of her hand and practically leaving the lower half of his body defenseless was, without a doubt, purely on the stupid side.

She ducked, swiftly blocking the attack with one arm, then took the open window to slam her head into his stomach and tackled him, pinning him to the pavement. She was heavier than she looked, and her knee on his chest pressed into the fresh bruise underneath the fabric. He gritted his teeth. Great, now he was trapped. On a sidewalk of the New York city. In broad daylight.

He had already drawn enough unwanted attention to himself since he left the safehouse; if this attempt on his life went on any longer, her succeeding or not wouldn’t even matter.  
He had to do something, and he had to do it quick.

The woman brought up her left hand and struck him across his face. Again.

 _Good_ , He reminded himself when he tasted blood in his mouth, _She’s stalling. She needs time to reach for her weapon._

He glanced down briefly to locate the gun he dropped earlier. Three shots left. He’d counted.

“You look familiar, ” He turned his face to the side and spat out a mouthful of blood, “Do I know you?”

His fingers touched something cold. Metal. He’d found it. Just a few more seconds….

“It seems like you already know me, that’s why I asked.”

He felt around the gun and carefully turned it around to fit in his hand.

“Sorry, it’s nothing personal.” His assaulter grinned, flashing the edge of her teeth. She spoke with a soft French accent. “A hundred million for a life—You understand the way of business, _Baba Yaga._ Better than any of us.”

So it was true. A hundred million.

“You sure we can’t sit down and talk this out?” He re-positioned the gun in his hand.

“Funny,” She added more pressure on his chest, forcing a groan out of him. “Never knew you were a talker.”

He tightened his grip on the gun. “I’m not.”

With that, he pulled the trigger and fired one shot into the air.

His assaulter whipped her head around at the deafening gunshot, and for a second, her grip on his shoulder was loosened. He yanked himself free, backhanded the woman with his gun-holding hand, then finished her off with the remaining bullets; one in her stomach, one in her head.

He sat up, caught her body just as it was falling backwards, pulled it to him by the lapels and started rifling through her coat for ammos.

What happened next, he considered, was a perfect demonstration of supposedly the main and only thing that had kept him alive all these years: Blind luck. He’d definitely not planned to use the corpse as a shield, that’s for sure; actually, he didn’t even notice that someone on the other side of the road was making a beeline for him before the corpse in front of him ended up saving his ass by conveniently catching three bullets on its back.

He stayed crouched behind it until he was certain that the one who attacked him was close enough, then pushed the corpse aside, brought an arm up and trapped the gun-wielding hand in his grip.

The hand was wrapped in fresh bandages.

He stared at the sight of it, the bruised finger resting against the trigger, just like the ones that had held the leash of his dog and fed him treats for dinner when he was in a mood, the ones that had made him countless cups of too-strong breakfast tea that he’d secretly grown to like, the ones that threw out a knife that was not made for throwing and saved his life in that dark alley a month ago; that night, he’d stared at those scrawny fingers and heard her say, she’d said…. She’d said….

_Come on. Let’s go home._

He didn’t know how hard he’d been squeezing, but she almost immediately opened her hand, letting her gun fall to the ground.

She cried out in pain, and he knew that voice.

 _So this is it,_ he thought, _this is it._ This was the great fucking revelation, the answer he’d been looking for every waking moment in the past month; _what a waste._

He’d been right all along—she was making an investment. Simple as that. Keeping him safe for herself, like a pig waiting to be slaughtered…. She’d put on a great show; her patience had paid off. From fourteen to a hundred million. Now, she was here to collect the bounty herself.

For a month, he’d been making assumptions of all sorts, deducing his possible fate from bits and pieces of her life he’d sub-consciously collected, preparing himself for the worst; but now, he wasn’t quite sure what version of worst this was supposed to be.

John Wick was suddenly aware of how cold it was, on the streets of New York; or perhaps he was just tired. He wanted to sit down, wanted to crawl back under the corpse so he didn’t have to look up, didn’t have to look at her; he knew what he was going to see, and he also knew that the once familiar ferocity in those wild, wild hazel eyes would suddenly mean something entirely different.

He was still clutching her hand; he knew how easy it would be for him to crush her thin, almost bony fingers in his grip. He knew a thousand ways to hurt her so bad she would beg for him to put a bullet in her head. He knew pain; he knew torture.

But just like what he’d told Santino D’antonio a month ago— he wasn’t that guy, not anymore.

So he just held on, wishing that she would say something—anything—an explanation, a denial— he wished that she would taunt, would gloat; he wanted her to lie to him, the way she always had.

He wanted her to know that in this moment, and only in this moment, if she asked for forgiveness, she would have it; if she begged for mercy, she would live.

He just needed one word from her, one word for him to know where they stood.

But then he probably squeezed too hard, and when he heard the kid cried out again, he simply let go of her hand; that rather unwise decision, almost immediately, earned him a punch to his throat.

He staggered back, hoping the abrupt, intense shot of pain would sober him up; but she didn’t give him much time to recover. She drove a knee into his ribs, taking all the remaining air out of his lungs, then grabbed his forearm with her uninjured hand and pulled.  
He lost his balance, and her left elbow found his jaw; before he could figure out what exactly he should do, he was on the ground, put into a headlock by one pale, twiggy arm. He noticed she had gotten skinnier and had once again returned to the waiflike physique like that when she was living on the streets years ago, but then reminded himself that it was not his place to worry about her. It had never been his place, or anybody else’s.

Suddenly, she leaned into him from behind and he felt her breath on his left ear. It was hot, almost scorching.

He shivered.

“Fight back, you moron.” The familiar British accent, stripped of its usual chilling indifference, was oddly comforting in this moment.  
He briefly glanced around, located a surveillance camera across the street, and finally realized what the kid was doing.

He reached behind his back, clutched the hem of her coat, then somersaulted forward, throwing the kid to the ground. Before she could react, he bent down and grabbed her by the back of her collar, dragging her to her feet and off the road, where he could shield her from the camera. He slammed the kid into the iron fence on the opposite side of the sidewalk and held her down.

The back of her head hit the rusted metal, hard.

She groaned.

“Sorry.”

“Shut the fuck up,” She hissed angrily, “The inside of my coat. Now.”

He obeyed and quickly started to collect the supplies the kid had brought him. How she managed to complete any one of her daily mundane tasks as a walking arsenal was beyond him; ammos, guns, karambits and switchblades…. He raised an eyebrow at her and held up a hand grenade.

“Put it back,” She ordered, “That's mine. I'll need it.”

“What for?”

She gave him a look that could only be described as outraged and murderous; it was very effective. He put back the grenade and took five gun magazines from her coat.

“These will last you at least an hour. Go to location 4 after sundown and wait there. It’s half a mile away from here, and if you tell me you don’t know where location 4 is, John, I swear to God—”  
“—I know where it is. The blue dot on your map.”  
“Yes. Now act like I just stabbed you with a knife and let me go.” She reached up and pounded her fist on his left pec. He took a step back and clutched at his alleged knife wound.

“Thank god you’re not an actor,” He heard the kid mumbled under her breath before knocking him to the ground with a single right hook and hopping over the fence. She landed soundlessly on the grassy field and her swift footsteps padded away.

He scrambled to his feet, picked up his gun and quickly reloaded it.

He thought about what had just happened; he thought about how the kid had found him, again, how she still…. Believed. She still believed that she could do it. That she could keep him safe.

_Just a 19-year-old against the world…._

But it wouldn’t come to that. He wouldn’t allow it. There was another way. There would always be another way.

She said that the ammos would last him an hour; she was wrong.

These would last him _forever._

All he had to do was…. Decide.

John Wick turned and marched across the street.

He wished that he could say he didn’t look back, but he did. And he saw that the kid was already gone. So he kept walking, and for the first time, feeling that the weight of a gun in his hand was just a gram too much to bear.

*******************************************  


He was late.

I knew he wasn’t dead; if he was, Accounts Payable would’ve sent a text announcing the closing of his contract. I checked my phone again, just to be sure…. Nope. Still nothing.

But he was late, and he should’ve been here half an hour ago. Now a logical explanation would be that he was lost and couldn’t find the place, unfortunately, I happened to know that the man of “focus, commitment, and sheer will” also possessed photographic memory just like the rest of his kind, like me. And since I have yet to witness symptoms of dementia after closely observing the man for almost a month, my best guess was that he was now engaging in an old-fashioned fist fight in the back of a third-rate delly while sustaining multiple injuries and losing blood at a worryingly rapid speed, all of which, arguably, made for a pretty good excuse for being late.

“Don’t worry, he’ll make it.” I said, out loud, then suddenly remembered I didn’t have the dog with me; I’d taken him to the Continental hotel and asked the concierge to look after him for a few hours before coming here.

My phone vibrated loudly in my pocket; for a moment, I was almost certain that I’d soon be reading a text from Accounts Payable announcing my spectacular failure, but then it didn’t stop, and I realized that I’d got a phone call.

I pulled the phone out from my pocket and checked.

It was from the Hotel. I tapped once on the screen.

“Miss Greene,” Charon’s smooth, properly polite but always inanimate voice greeted from the speaker. “We understand that you have urgent business to attend to–”

“Don’t,” I cut him off. Him and his impeccable manners…. “What’s wrong? Is he giving you troubles? If he started barking, just put him on a stool and he’ll shut up.”

“No, Miss Greene. He’s been great. I enjoyed having him over.”

It was Winston then.

“Oh,” I kept my voice indifferent, “So to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“The manager wish to speak to you. Shall I put him on–”  
“Yes, yes,” I urged, impatient.

“The Continental appreciates your cooperation. Please hold.”

A single _beep._ The soft crackle of another landline speaker being picked up.  
“Good evening, Athlyana.”

A black Lexus SUV pulled up next to the sidewalk across the street. I immediately lowered my head and let the other half of the hood fall to shield my eyes. I waited until I heard the sound of its engine starting again, then looked up to make sure that it was driving away.

“What happened to your phone?” I asked, not really caring.

“Your stray bit it in half. That’s not why I’m–”

“My _what_ did _what_?” I asked, dumbfounded, then realized he was actually referring to the dog this time.  
“But I just spoke with the concierge and he told me he’s been good?”

“Oh, he has,” Winston sprang to his defense. “I was the one who gave him my iphone to chew on. I remembered reading somewhere that American Pit Bull Terriers carry almost three hundred pounds of pressure in their bite force, and I thought I could conduct a _perfectly_ harmless experiment–”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “How bad was it, Winston?”

There was a moment of silence.  
“His gums may have been bleeding,” He admitted rather sheepishly.

I closed my eyes and counted to ten in my head. Anybody has some good news to share? No?

“–But rest assured, our doctor also has a degree in veterinary medicine and he said there was absolutely nothing to worry about–”

“– Winston,” I snapped, “The reason you’re calling?”

“Right, of course,” He chuckled dryly, “I’m calling to let you know that the place is cleared. You have exactly two days to move him in, Athlyana; the countdown starts now.”  
“Ok,” I replied absent-mindedly.  
Someone was approaching. The blinding headlights struck my eyes; I tried to back into the shadows, but then soon realized that the car was coming right at me.

“Is he with you, Athlyana?”

I turned away, watching the car carefully out of the corner of my eye. It was that SUV from earlier. I didn’t recognize the car nor the plate number; but then again, neither of them seemed to mean much in our line of business. “Yeah, of course. Why?”

Winston sighed. “You don’t know where he is.”

Son of a bitch. “What made you think that?”

The SUV pulled up right in front of me. No point in running now.

“You didn’t pester me with endless questions regarding the safety of the location, Athlyana. The absence of your usual paranoia is incredibly suspicious.”

The driver opened his door and stepped out of the vehicle. “Stop talking,” I could only whisper to Winston before the stranger strode towards me, seized me by the shoulders and slammed me into the filthy transformer box behind. He yanked the hood of my hoodie off my head.

I could tell from the confused look in his eyes and the crease between his brows that he didn’t recognize me, not with my freshly-dyed black hair, those steel blue contact lenses, the enormous temporary tattoo covering the entire left side of my face.

I, on the other hand, recognized him right away.

“Hey!” I shouted, shoving at his chest with both hands, “ _¿Qué carajo crees que estás haciendo? ¿Estás loco o qué?_ ”*

“ _Disculpa,_ ” He still hadn’t gotten rid of the british accent in his spanish. “I thought you were someone I knew.”  
He let go of me and took a few steps back.

What the hell was Raphael Ellingsworth doing in New York?

It better not be what I was thinking.

“You still there, sir? Hello?” Another voice with heavy british accent called from the cellphone in his breast pocket. He pulled it out, held the phone up to his ear and started walking away from me.

“Yes, yes, I’m listening. You got eyes on Wick?”

I lunged at him from behind and caught his left arm before I could make sense of what I just heard. He glanced back at me, annoyed.

“ _¿Adónde crees que vas a ir? Voy a llamar la poli,_ ” I hissed at him and strained to eavesdrop on their conversation.

“Yes, sir. Jackson just reported back to me. He spotted Wick on the Brooklyn bridge three minutes ago.”

He yanked his arm free and threw a careless _“Buenas noches”_ my way before turning his attention back to his friend on the phone.  
“Good, I’m heading there. Keep all eyes on him and wait for further instructions.”

He got into the car and drove away.

“That went well,” Winston’s caustic chuckles rose from the speaker. I ended the call.  


Brooklyn Bridge. He wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near the Brooklyn Bridge. We’ve agreed on all of the escape routes, quick cuts and meet up points; not a single one out of the twelve I marked on that map I gave him involved the Brooklyn Bridge.  


_What are you doing, John?_

I pulled the hood back over my head and ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *To my readers who don't speak Spanish, these are the translated dialogue in chronological order:  
> "What the fuck do you think you're doing? Are you crazy or something?"
> 
> -"Sorry"
> 
> "Where the hell do you think you're going, I'm calling the cops"
> 
> And "Buenas noches" - "Goodnight"
> 
> Comments/ asks on Tumblr are always appreciated!


	19. Quarantine

**_John_ **

He wondered if the kid was still going to keep his dog. 

_That’s it,_ He arm-threw the man shooting at him with a H&K 9mm to the ground, stepped on his shoulder and twisted. He heard a sickening crunch. (The word the old John Wick would’ve used was “satisfying”, but even him had to admit that bone-breaking, as an unusual form of pastime, had lost most of its appeal over years of endless practicing.) He dug his heel into the joint; the man screamed and squirmed beneath his left foot. 

_That’s it,_ he wrung the H &K out of his hand and shot him in the back of his head. The screaming and squirming stopped at once.

_That’s it. No more wonderings, no more thinking about what Atlas Greene would do, no more thinking about what Atlas Greene is doing, no more thinking about what Atlas Greene is thinking…._

_No more thinking about Atlas Greene._

At least not before he’s taken his time to sort this out. Right now, he needed to focus. And he needed a plan.

John used to be rather good at this. The focusing. The planning. But now, every time he tried to construct something remotely useful in his head, he found himself thinking about two hazel eyes with specks of gold splattered in them, carved and cut to glisten like a mad jeweler’s diamonds.

Her eyes were lakes filled with mud and toxic waste and things with razor sharp teeth swimming below the surface; John knew a trap when he saw one, and he also knew that if he fell, he would get dragged all the way to the bottom and they would’ve never let go. But every lake were bodies of water once, just water, pure and clean and brimming with life. 

In his head, he tried to walk around the shore, carefully planning each step, eyeing the moistened, blackened soil beneath his feet. 

In his head, he tried to walk away. But he kept coming back to the lakes. _Every damn time._ And then his feet would wobble, ever so slightly, just enough to make him trip and fall, and his face would be just a little bit too close to the surface—  
He should’ve gotten up and run, for good, but instead he would find himself staring at the poisoned water—at _her_ —and he would wonder, _what happened here?_

_Every damn time._

It was strange, how Atlas Greene always made him think of water, with a name that tasted so much like bonfire and smoke. 

He heard footsteps approaching from behind and started walking faster. He was running out of time.  
And bullets. 

Now, he was imagining the kid glaring at him with those dangerous eyes, scowling, looking as irritated as ever, like he was a huge puppy dog that wouldn’t stop knocking over his own water bowl. _Really, John?_ Her hazel eyes said without a sound, _Are you fucking kidding me?_

He decided to stop thinking altogether.

**_Atlas_ **

The driver of the blue Mercedes-Benz sedan slammed on the brakes as soon as she saw me standing there, in the middle of the road, but the car hit me anyway. My already bruised forehead landed on her windshield and my body slid down from the hood with a grating squeak. 

She shrieked in terror, clearly not noticing that it was actually me who was supposed to be in agonizing pain right now. 

I sat up from the ground. The screaming continued. “NYPD!” I put up a hand and shouted, struggling to pull the badge out of my waistband. It was stuck. 

Why was I not surprised? 

I scrambled to my feet and limped towards the car. I knocked on her window and she rolled it down with a trembling hand.  
“NYPD,” I said to the terrified blonde woman in neon-red tracksuit, finally holding up my badge. “Please step out of the vehicle, ma’am, I need to use your car.” 

I had been worrying about my trashy outfit and fake face tattoos and how they made me look like a violent junkie—which _was_ the whole point of my disguise—instead of a police officer, or whether she would notice that my stolen badge was actually issued by Scotland Yard and not the New York Police Department; but now, I could tell that I’d clearly overestimated New Yorkers’ average reflexes, because she didn’t even bother to take one single look at my face or wait for me to finish my sentence before she opened the door, threw herself out of her car and proceeded to run away from me, screaming her head off. 

I blinked, confused, then suddenly realized that she must’ve seen the gun sticking out from my back pocket. 

Well, that worked too. 

I got into the car, started the engine and turned it around.  
He was somewhere near the Brooklyn Bridge, the bloody Brooklyn Bridge, probably bleeding to death with zero to no bullet left in his gun….

 _Really, John?_ I growled silently in my head, pushing the pedal all the way into the floor.

_Are you fucking kidding me?_

_**John** _

They’d teamed up. 

He wasn’t surprised, not really; there had never been an international open contract with a denomination higher than a hundred million before him, and even freelancers had collaborated for less. 

He just hadn’t expected…. This. The three women and two men that had been following him for the past five minutes, he didn’t know what to make of them. Neither did he recognize any of them; they weren’t from his time. 

He walked around the corner, passing a small cafe. He thought, briefly, about turning around and taking out one of them here and now, just to see what would happen, but then decided against it. They were probably counting on him to make the first move. 

There were too many of them. He needed a distraction. 

He walked slower, keeping them close deliberately. He moved from side to side when he walked, zigzagging like a drunkard—he knew they had snipers on the roof. 

The team hadn’t even pulled a gun on him once. They only trailed behind him, exchanging meaningful glances with each other—that was how John picked them out from the crowd.  
They were waiting. _For what?_

He walked past a man sitting in the outdoor seat of an Italian restaurant. He glanced up at him. His eyes widened, and John could tell that he wasn’t part of the team; still, he recognized john right away. 

His hand crept towards the inside of his overcoat, but John already had a gun in his hand. 

A single gunshot went off on his left, fired by one of his followers.The sitting man fell back and sagged against the cast aluminum chair, blood and brain matter oozing from the fresh bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. People around them started screaming and backing away.

_Now._

He turned to his left and grabbed the man’s hand, which was still out-stretched and holding a gun. Their attention was divided by the man in the chair; this was his only chance. He bent his wrist, forcing him to drop his gun, then abruptly pushed his hand backwards and let it bash against his own face. He staggered back, covering his nose with a hand; John held up his gun, aimed at the other man’s right eye, and pulled the trigger. He dropped to the ground. 

John pushed pass the crowd and ran.

He could hear the dead man’s colleagues pulling out their guns. A bullet hit him on his shoulder. Then another. Neither of them got through his body armor, and he kept running.

He ran until he was almost sure they’d lost him, then slowed down and looked around. He needed to find the nearest entry to the subway station; then he would think of something. A plan. Not necessarily a good one, but still better than nothing.

There was no one around him now, he noticed—a rather unusual thing for this part of Manhattan; he was counting on the crowd to shield him.

It didn’t take him long to realize that this sudden, strange area of seclusion was no coincidence. This was planned. Designed.

This was a quarantine. 

**_Atlas_ **

There were three police cars tailing me now. This was great. Fucking fantastic. Cops and attention, just what I needed right now.

How exactly did anyone get any business done in this god forsaken city? Why the hell did John get to commit mass murders in broad daylight and no one batted an eye, while I had to put up with two-thirds of the local police force on my ass just for politely threatening a fellow citizen?

I took a hand off the steering wheel and pulled out my phone.

“Come on, come on….” I dialed the first available number in my contacts. Not exactly an ideal choice, but beggars can’t be choosers.

“This is Reyes,” _Why the hell must he talk so slow?_

“Jimmy!” I shouted and abruptly swerved to the right, almost crashing into a FedEx truck. “Jimmy, tell those morons in Chinatown to fuck off!” 

He didn’t speak for the next 5 seconds. I gritted my teeth. “Jimmy, for god’s sake!”  
One of the police cars sped up and got into the spot next to me. “Pull over and exit the vehicle, I repeat, pull over and exit the vehicle!” He shouted from the speaker. 

“Uh, who is this?” Jimmy sounded genuinely scared, as he should be. I was losing my patience. 

“I’m a member of the Continental,” I veered to the left, forcing the police car off the road and onto the sidewalk. “I know my fucking _rights!_ We’ve signed a treaty with law enforcements and they need to leave me the fuck alone _right now!_ ”  
“Sorry, uh, how did you get my number?”

I heard a gunshot and my backlite shattered. 

Ok, that’s enough.

I rolled down the window, sticking my head out. “WHAT THE FUCK?” I shouted at the police car behind me, “WHAT IS YOUR _PROBLEM_? I TOLD YOU I’M A MEMBER OF THE CONTINENTAL!” 

I barely dodged his next bullet, which was coming straight for my face. I stuck my left arm out and flipped him off before getting back into the car and rolling up the window.

“JIMMY!” I screamed at the phone.

“You said you’re in Manhattan?”

Fuck me. “Do you need me to spell it out for you?”

He sighed. “Ma’am you do know I’m stationed in Long Island, right?”

“Jimmy I swear to _god_ —”

“Hey ma’am?” He cut me off abruptly. He sounded…. Confused. “I just heard about Chinatown on our radio and, um….”

“And WHAT?”

“They’re not the NYPD.”

_Shit._

I ended the call and tossed the phone onto the floor. 

_This is the worst day of my life_ , I thought, reaching into the bag in the passenger seat and took out a hand grenade.

I’d already had the pin between my teeth before looking up, expecting to see a panicking crowd and chaos everywhere….

I first noticed the silence. 

All of the sirens from those stolen police cars had stopped; civilians’ frightened screams now sounded strangely far away from me. 

I opened my mouth and released the still-intact safety pin, pulling the grenade away from my face. I looked into the rearview mirror; those fake cops had pulled up by the sidewalk about a hundred yards behind. 

I looked back to the road ahead, and then I saw it.  
I saw the emptiness in front of me. The manmade void. 

I thought about turning the car around. I tried. I really did. 

But I knew damn well I would only end up coming back. I would always come back for him.

_Every damn time._

**_John_ **

Grey eyes. Short blonde hair. Lips that opened up the wrong way when he smiled. 

Now he finally knew who ordered the quarantine.

“Raphael?”

“Hello, John.” Raphael Ellingsworth flashed him his cruel, grotesque grin. His grey eyes briefly swept down to the gun in John’s hand.  
He could tell that he’d already figured out where John was going to aim. And he knew he would dodge it.  
One. Two. Two bullets, that was all he’d left in his gun. He couldn’t take down Ellingsworth before he got to him.

But he had to try.

The other man’s face showed no fear nor alarm; only boredom. _Alright, John. Let’s get this over with._

“I have to say, John—”

The rest of his sentence was interrupted by a sharp screech of tires. A blue Mercedes-benz sedan with its headlights off crashed through the bushes from the other side of the road, running over the blonde man. 

**_Atlas_ **

I reversed the car and sped forward, driving onto his face this time. I almost thought I heard the satisfying squish of Ellingsworth’s head being crushed flat under the tire; I tried not to enjoy it too much.

I reversed again, stopping right in front of John. He had jumped to the side and landed on his back when my car came crashing through. I grabbed the duffle bag on the passenger seat and tossed it to the back, then reached over, opening the car door for him. 

Now before we got to what happened next, just let me make this clear: I’m usually a very careful person. 

At least I’ve tried to be as careful as I could my whole life. 

When I make a decision, I think about how it could affect everything else that, in turn, could end up affecting me; I make lists, I imagine the worst to best scenarios, I try to look at the big picture. Sure enough, I’d be lying if I said this kind of mindset could get me through just about everything forever; and that’s why, for the past six years, I had managed to avoid putting myself in situations that could result in me having to face decisions I wasn’t ready to make. 

I know when to run, and when the time comes, I run like hell. I recognize danger; I listen, I watch, I _pay attention._

But the moment I saw him there across the street, alive and in one piece— _it was him it was **really** him—He_ was all I could see. I saw him standing in the dark, with a gun in his hand, his clothes were torn and there was blood on his cheek and his neck and…. And…. 

I had no excuse. I _slipped._

I saw him, and suddenly he was the biggest picture and nothing else mattered. _I found him. I didn’t lose. I’m not too late, not this time._

I didn’t know why to me, merely the _sight_ of him was such an overwhelming comfort; probably because I was tired and scared and bleeding and my hand hurt so, so bad, or perhaps, it was just because he was John Wick, _the_ John Wick, who was stronger than I ever would be and _nothing_ in this world was big enough to take him down. 

_It’s gonna be ok,_ That was the last thought in my head before I opened the car door. _He’s alive and everything’s gonna be ok._

I felt almost…. Relieved, in that very moment. The moment I slipped.

I forgot that _relief_ was an useless emotion commonly experienced by stupid people before their sudden and unexpected deaths; in fact, I forgot a lot of things. 

I forgot that in John’s head, I was still on the other side of the Brooklyn bridge, waiting patiently for him at location 4, and that me killing Ellingsworth wouldn’t mean anything to him since half of the New York city had already begun tearing each other apart over that 100 million; I forgot that I was very much still in disguise, a damn good disguise, with my shoulder-length black hair, different outfit than the one he’d seen earlier today, and the temporary tattoo that covered up most of my facial features. 

I pushed opened the car door, and there he was. 

It wasn’t until now that the thought finally occurred to me.  
I could never keep up with him. He was too fast. 

_He doesn’t recognize me,_ I stared at the gun in my face. 

_Oh god, he doesn’t recognize me._

**_John_ **

He recognized her immediately.

She looked different—black hair, blue eyes, elaborate tattoo covering almost half of her face…. The bruise on her forehead was gone as well; she’d taken off the bandages on her hand and was now wearing fingerless leather gloves on both hands to cover up the injuries. He’d never seen her in that hoodie before. It was strangely tailored and oversized, but looked perfectly natural on her and somehow still managed to hide her physical stature. 

The disguise was impressive; she looked nothing like herself. 

But he knew it was her. He just did.  
He’d known before she opened the car door. Before he laid eyes on her. 

She broke a quarantine for him.

If they saw her here, she wouldn’t be getting out alive. And if they found out about her being present even after she managed to escape, they would hunt her down. 

And when it came to that, not even the rules of the Continental could protect her.

_How did you find me, you little lunatic?_

He could hear footsteps approaching from behind; Ellingsworth’s men, he reckoned.  
They were shouting. They’d spotted him.

The kid still had a chance; they couldn’t outrun a car. They still hadn’t seen her face, and as long as he’d stayed in the quarantine, he doubted that they would bother to look for a nameless intruder who in no way had affected their plan.

All he had to do was to get her to start driving. Now.

John raised his hand and held up the gun. One, two. Two bullets, that was all he’d left in his gun, and it was just enough.

When he pulled the trigger, he thought of Santino D’Antonio’s word. _That’s why I need you,_ He’d said to him in the museum a month ago; _That’s why I need the ghost…. Lo Spettro, **John Wick.**_

If Santino D’Antonio had been here right now, if he’d seen John in this moment…. Maybe then, he would’ve finally believed. 

He really wasn’t that guy anymore. 

The bullet came close to scratching her right temple, but zipped right past her hairline and smashed through the window behind her. She ducked her head and slammed the door shut. 

She was going to think that he’d missed. 

He hadn’t.

The kid was yelling something in the car, but he wasn’t listening. 

He scrambled to his feet. _You were wrong about me,_ He said to Santino in his head as he fired the only bullet he’d left into another window, a carefully angled shot that aimed at the empty passenger seat. _You were wrong._

_I’m not what you thought I was._

“John!” He heard her muffled scream come from the inside of the car. Why wasn’t she driving away?

The footsteps behind them now sounded dangerously close. 

_Go,_ He smashed the rest of her passenger window with the grip of his gun. _Go._

Finally, she started the engine. 

He exhaled and stepped away from the car.  
She was leaving. 

She would live. 

Just the thought of that alone filled John with a kind of strange, warm feeling, the same one he’d experienced when he saw Helen’s bracelet hanging from the kid’s thin fingers the day he woke up in his first safehouse; he remembered thinking _it’s gone,_ that he’d lost it forever—then there it was, right in front of him. And he felt it.  
That feeling. 

_Relief._

He should’ve known, better than anyone else, that _relief_ wasn’t just an useless emotion; it was a defect, a dangerous defect, one that John couldn’t afford. Especially not in times like this. 

But he couldn’t help himself. He _needed_ to feel it. 

Especially in times like this.

Because in times like this…. When every breath you take has suddenly become a luxury, when everything you thought you knew starts to _shift_ …. When every next step can lead you to your burial ground and there’s no place left to go, you had to remember what home looks like.

When the whole world have turned against you in a blink of an eye, it’s your job to hold onto the few things that still haven’t. No matter how small it is. Or how fragile.

A bracelet. A dog. 

A teenage girl with strange eyes.

He could hear people right behind him now, but it wouldn’t matter. 

John opened his hand and dropped his emptied gun to the ground. 

_She will live_ , He reached into his pocket and felt for the bracelet. It was still there. He didn’t lose it. 

_She will live._

He wrapped the bracelet around his knuckles, letting it share his warmth. 

When he felt something cold bite into the back of his neck, he’d thought that it was a knife.  
But then a strange, dull ache started to spread under his skin. 

He turned around. It was one of the women that’d followed him earlier; she took a swing at him and he blocked it with ease. He grabbed her arm and twisted it; a wet pop came from her joint.

She screamed. 

_Where’s your gun?_ It was almost too easy. He held his other hand up to her throat and….

And he couldn’t.

His grip on her arm loosened on its own. He tried to move his trembling arms. Nothing happened.

The cold numbness gradually swallowed his lower limbs. He staggered back, his vision starting to blur as he dropped to his knees.

The woman took a step forward, grinning, then socked him right in his nose with her uninjured hand. 

His head hit the ground. 

He could only lie there on the pavements, feeling his entire body slip away from him; but it wasn’t like he would need to do anything else. 

_If this is how I die, it’s okay. It really is._

If this was how his story ended, he really wouldn’t mind. Because in this story, his story, Atlas Greene survived.

_If this is the only way to end it all, please…. **Let it be.**_

He looked to his left with difficulty, and he saw Santino D’Antonio standing there, looking down at him. John could see the fading color of the night sky through the bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.

He knew that it wasn’t real. His mind was playing tricks on him, even at his dying moment. Still, he wished that the dead man was really here. That it wasn’t all in his head. 

He wished that he could use his dying breath to laugh in Santino D’Antonio’s face— _You lost this round,_ he said without sound; _You can burn down my house, chase me out of a life without killing, you can wet my hands with Gianna’s blood, with **your** blood—you can have it all, my life, my soul…. But you will never break me, not really. _

_You want to know why?_

_Because she will live._

_You hear me, Santino? You can poison my veins, scatter my bones—you can tear me limb from limb, but the girl will live._

_Atlas Greene will not become one of my many mistakes, and no one— **no one** —can take that away from me. Not even you. _

The dead man smiled at him, and it was that same boyish, bittersweet smile of his he had when he was alive, like he was celebrating a never-ending funeral, like he needed to suppress a laugh and hold back his tears at the same time. 

_You know, John—You’re right. I was wrong about you._

His smile remained; his lips were still. But it was Santino D’Antonio’s voice in John’s head, and he heard it just fine, just right there under the hollow, rotting silence. 

_You're no ghost. You’re just a man._

**_Atlas_ **

I couldn’t see him. 

The moment before, I was watching them in the rearview mirror—I’d decided to go make a U-turn ahead when I saw Florence Rivera running towards us; in my defense, John had made it very clear that I would’ve had to run him over too if I want him to stop hacking at my car like a rabid dog with mailmen’s bikes, so I thought it might be best for me to stay out of his way, for a little while— In the meantime, he could just take it out on Rivera and calm himself down. 

I’ve always thought violence was an excellent coping mechanism. Besides, I knew he could crush that woman like a gnat with his pinkie. I wasn’t worried, not until now. Not until he disappeared from my sight. 

I slammed on the brakes, then reached up to adjust the rearview mirror, moving it from left to right.  
I could still see Rivera standing in the middle of the road, talking to someone using a walkie talkie—she was cradling an arm, but other than that, she looked fine. Still breathing, I meant. 

_What the fuck is going on?_

I gritted my teeth and started backing up, keeping my eyes on the rearview mirror the whole time. 

I wasn’t going to get out of the car and risk being seen, not yet. I still had no idea how many were stationed in the area—or where—but I had a pretty good guess about who ordered the quarantine. If I was right, then I’d be damned if I had to get him out on foot.

All they needed was one witness to identify me in the quarantine, and it would be my funeral. 

Rivera turned around and saw my car backing into her. I ducked when she raised an arm at me, thinking she’d got a gun in her hand—but the thing that hit and was now stuck to my backlite was no bullet.

Then, I heard the beeps. 

_Shit._

I opened the door and jumped out of the car, rolling onto the sidewalk. My shoulder collided with the pavements and let out a rough crack in protest. The car didn’t stop; I didn’t have to look to know that Rivera had jumped out of the way—but a girl could hope.  
I stayed down and started dragging myself away on my elbows; I had to get away fast, I had about ten seconds before the bomb attached to the car went off…. 

My forearm sank into something soft.  
Thick, long black hair. 

I lifted my head and saw John lying face-up in front of me, unmoving; his eyes were closed. 

Four seconds.

There was no time. We weren’t far enough away from the bomb.  
I could still get myself to safety; I could get up and run. 

But I knew I would only come back to him. In the end, I would always come back.

_Time’s up._

I threw myself over him, shielding him from the impact of the explosion as the bomb went off; I couldn’t even cover my ears—I was cradling his head with both hands, wrapping my arms tightly around his neck and holding his face against my chest.

The vicious heat swallowed me; I could feel it creeping under my clothes and licking off the skin on my back with its acidic tongue, I could smell the stench of singed hair and taste the blood in my mouth—I couldn’t hear anything other than the horrible ringing in my ears.

But none of these mattered, not anymore. Not after I saw what was on the back of his neck. 

A syringe.

He’d been poisoned. 

The world was on fire, and John Wick’s body felt so cold in my arms. 

 

**_John_ **

_Teenagers, and their stupid, stupid stubbornness…._ He should’ve aimed for her legs when he had the chance. 

He should’ve told her the truth. He should’ve lied. Anything to get her to leave.

But he did nothing, and now he could do nothing; he could only lie there, helpless, as the kid got picked up by the waist from behind and pulled away from him. 

The night Daisy died, he was also on the ground. Helpless. The helplessness was still clear, too clear, after all the time he’d spent trying to forget that moment. The moment he heard Yosef Tarasov yelled “Someone shut that dog up” and slowly realized what those Russian words meant. The moment he found himself more afraid than angry, when he found himself wanting to say _if you want my car, you can have it. Take anything, everything, but don’t hurt him please I’m begging you he’s just a dog—_ The moment he saw the puppy squirm under their grip, and realized that all he could do was _watch._

The moment he realized that it was over.

That he’d failed Helen. Again.

He kept his eyes closed and hoped that this time, it would hurt a little less.

**_Atlas_ **

I brought both my knees up and stomped down on Rivera’s thighs, freeing myself from her arm around my waist. I felt the stitches on my stomach being torn by the sudden movements, but I couldn’t care less. 

She dropped me to the ground. I lied back, facing up, and crescent-kicked her on the ribs. She groaned and staggered back, holding a hand up to her side.

I rolled over, got back on my feet, then lunged at her from behind. She let out a surprised yelp when she felt my weight on her back; I wrapped my legs around her hips and put her into a tight headlock, with one hand clawing at her eyes. She screamed.

“What did you give him?” She bent forward and tried to throw me off her, but I held on.  
“What was in that syringe?” I growled into her ear. 

A sudden, sharp jab of pain tore through my left forearm. 

“See for yourself, bitch.” There was laughter in Rivera’s voice. 

I let go of her neck, unhooked my legs from her hips and flopped down to the ground. 

She turned to face me, her face a bloody, furious mess. I didn’t get up; I studied the syringe on my arm in silence. It looked just like the one she used on John. I let the hand drop to my stomach. 

Rivera took a step towards me. She slowly crouched down, bringing her face to just a few inches away from mine.  
“Huh,” She frowned. “Interesting.”

She didn’t recognize me. 

“I mean I knew he’d need help, but _you_ ….”  
She paused, trying to find the correct word. 

“You’re…. You’re a nobody.”

I didn’t move. I simply looked at her, my blinking slow and controlled.

“The Baba Yaga chose _you_ ,” I could hear the confusion and amazement in her voice,  
“A _child._ He could’ve gone to anyone else, anyone— Why?” She stared at me; there wasn’t any malice or jeer in her eyes. Only…. Curiosity. 

I had a bad history with curiosity. 

“Maybe,” I smiled weakly at her, lowering my voice to a whisper. A whisper that she’d need to lean forward to hear. That would make her come a little closer.

“It’s just like how you could’ve reached for your gun and killed me ten seconds ago.”

I thrusted the syringe into her left eye. 

“Or how you could’ve stayed in the Hotel tonight and left my ward alone,” I pulled it out, pushing her away from me as I stood up. She covered her face with a hand and writhed blindly on the ground. 

“How’s London, Florence?” 

I stepped on her left shoulder—the one John had taken care of earlier—and knelt down to straddle her chest. 

“People back there are still talking, aren’t they?” I held her down by her throat and thrusted the needle into that eye again. 

“About a runaway. An arsonist.”

I pulled the needle back out from her eye socket. 

“You’ve heard things about that girl. Strange things. Things no one could explain. And you thought they were stories, just stories.”

I looked into her eyes—her _eye_ —and saw a stranger’s face looking back at me. 

“You should’ve believed them, Florence,” I whispered, 

“You should’ve believe that I was Frankenstein’s little monster.”

Slowly, her bloodied lips curled into a trembling, distorted grin.

“ _Le Petite Dragon._ ”

I sneered coldly at her. 

“In the flesh.” 

I brought my hand down and drove the syringe all the way into her brain.

**_John_ **

A sudden shot of sharp, burning pain clawed through his chest. He gasped, his eyes snapping open all by themselves. 

He stared at the kid.

“John? Hey, it’s me.” Her face was bleeding; the half-dried blood had started to cake at the hairline along her temples. He could feel her fingers digging into the center of his sternum—the very spot that intense shot of pain was coming from.

“Look,” She held up a hand and covered the tattooed half of her face. Her voice was shaking; her entire body was shaking. “It’s me, John. It’s Atlas.”

 _I know,_ He opened his mouth to say, _I know_ —But all that came out was a broken wheeze, which she misinterpreted entirely. 

“It’s supposed to hurt,” She gave him a small, trembling smile, “It’ll keep you awake for a few minutes.” He felt the pressure being lifted from his chest, but the pain remained. 

“We have to go now.” She took his left arm and wrapped it around her shoulder, “I’m going to get you out of here, you hear me?”

He heard _them._ They were coming for him, all of them. And they were close. Too close.

“I’ll find out what they put into that syringe,” She clutched his forearm in her bloodied hand and struggled to stand, but to no avail. 

“Then I’ll find the antidote.”

He was too heavy. And she was too weak. 

She couldn’t carry him.

“I’ll fix this.” For a moment, she sounded like she wasn’t talking to him.

“I’ll fix this,”She dug her heels into the rough surface beneath and tried to heave both of them back to their feet.

His arm slipped from her grip and he fell back to the ground. She fell with him, sitting down with a heavy thump. 

“No, no, no….” She turned and knelt down beside him. “Open your eyes, god dammit. You can’t go to sleep now. John. John.” She grabbed him by his collar and shook violently. 

“Hey. Look at me.”

He did. He opened his eyes, and it nearly took him everything. 

_Not everything._

The kid was still here, with him. And she was alive. And he could see her.

_But for how long?_

“Last night I asked you to keep me awake, and you did. Well done. It’s my turn now, ok? I’m going to keep you awake, and I can’t do it without you. Come on.” She pulled at his hand. 

_You can,_ He wanted to tell her, _You can, kid. Go. I’ll be fine._

“Hey. Hey. Listen to me.” She was now cradling the back of his neck with one hand, “You remember the first time we met? That job in Moscow?”

He did. He remembered everything.

“You were right, John,” She laughed, her shoulder trembling uncontrollably. 

For some reason, he’d prefer it if she’d cried instead. 

“You were right. That dagger was never made for throwing.” 

A drop of blood slid down from her forehead; she raised a hand and wiped it away.

“We were in that hallway and—I turned around, and you were right there—That was the first time someone had ever sneaked up on me. I knew you were good, John, but I’d never thought you’d be _that_ good. ”

She was still shaking. He wasn’t sure if it’s from the cold or the bleeding, or possibly both; the horror of a sudden realization dawned on him. 

_What have I done?_

“Then I saw that guard behind you. I knew you heard him, I knew you did…. But I—I just—” She fell silent for a moment, fighting off the shivers.

 _I didn’t._ He’d have laughed if he could. _I heard nothing, kid. And if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have gone home in one piece that night._

He was good at sneaking up on people, just not the other way around. 

“God, that was _such_ a bad throw,” She laughed, an acidic sound that clawed at his throat. “Remember that? I threw out that dagger, and hit him with its hilt—on his—on his—”

“—Shoulder,” His voice didn’t quite sound like his own, but he saw her face light up at the simple verbal response. 

He looked into her eyes, and he saw something dangerous. Destructive.

_Relief._

“Yes, on his _shoulder,_ ” She laughed again, this time even more hysterical than the last. “But I’m not like that anymore. I’m not. I’ve grown, John. I’m _better._ And this time,” She slipped her fingers into his hair and clutched at it frantically, forcing him to look her in the eyes. 

“I won’t miss. So get up. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

He wished that he had more air in his lungs, more strength in his tongue for him to speak.

He wanted to tell her that she was wrong, so wrong; that the throw she threw six years ago, although wasn’t an instant kill, was more than enough. Because it knocked the gun out of that guard’s hand. Because it could’ve been aiming at _him_ , but it wasn’t. 

Because she didn’t have to. But she did it anyway. 

And it saved his life. 

He wanted to tell the kid that she’d already done it, once, and it’s ok if she couldn’t do it again. That she’d already given him something no one else was willing to give in the past three weeks, something more crucial than his own survival:

The time to grieve. 

Not just for Helen, but also Daisy, his short-lived silver lining; for Marcus, who died protecting him from the ghost of his past, and Gianna, who’d thought she could’ve cheated Death, but never expected her Death to wear the face of a friend…. For Santino D’ Antonio, even, because despite all the man’s plots and schemes, he knew that deep down, he still cared about John, in his own twisted, destructive way…. And sometimes, all you could ask of someone was for them to _care_. Especially someone like Santino. Or like John. 

There were too many of them. Too many lives on his back for him to carry; he couldn’t bear to have one more.

He wanted to tell the kid that she’d done a good job, a damn good job, but it’s time to wake up.

It’s time to let go.

He wanted to tell her a lot of things; he wanted to say to her, _I’m sorry that it has to end like this._

_I wished we’d had more time._

But then he saw past her— He saw behind her. 

He saw what was coming for him, and he knew he could only afford one word.

He opened his mouth, struggling to make a sound. The kid noticed and quickly bent down, closing the distance between them.

“Yes?”

Her ear was feverish against his lips; he marveled at how he could still feel this…. This raging wildfire of life, when everything else felt like boneless autumn leaves, like ashes that died in this October’s wind.  
He held on to that warmth like it was the only thing that mattered, and perhaps it was—

“Run.”

**_Atlas_ **

I slowly lowered John’s head to the ground and stood up. 

There were footsteps behind me, just around the corner; fast, but not running. Someone around 180 pounds. Armed, carrying more than one gun….

I turned around.

He was still a good thirty yards away from us, but I knew who he was. 

And I knew, in that moment, that I’d lost. I’d lost it all.

“Cassian,” I breathed.

He had a gun in his hand; he stared at me first, his eyes blank, then he looked down to the man lying motionless at my feet. 

I watched, as Cassian’s dark eyes flare up, his shoulder tense, like a tiger that was ready to pounce at its prey. 

I wouldn’t run.

He raised his right arm, holding up his gun; I took a step to my left and stood in front of John.

For half a second, I thought he had recognized me. 

That it would’ve made a difference. 

Then I drew out the karambit in my wrist strap and lunged at him, and he pulled the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another long chapter that ended with a cliffhanger(sorry lol).... Also, we've reached 2000 hits!!! I love you guys so much, and just like you guys(hopefully) I can't wait to see where John and Atlas' epic journey is heading next!


	20. The Marker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like in basically every single chapter—Atlas deserved better. Cassian showed up and was immediately so done with everything. Just done

**_John_ **

_No_ , He thought, horrified, as the kid charged blindly at Cassian, the karambit trembling in her unsteady hand. _No. Stop. It’s not going to work. He knows that move._

He had a gun and he’d already fired twice; but John could see, from this angle, that neither shots were meant for the kid. He heard a body drop a few yards away from them. Possibly someone working for the issuer of this quarantine. 

He wanted to save John’s death for himself.

The gun went off again. Someone behind them cried out in pain. 

Cassian took another step forward, and the distance between the man and the girl was gone….

…. And reappeared. 

He dodged the kid’s attack without even looking down at her, placed a hand on the back of her neck and effortlessly pushed her to the ground and behind him. Her knife fell out of her hand and landed, loudly, next to John’s face.

He kept walking. A man in black suit came at him with a gun, but not fast enough. Cassian stepped to his left and caught his arm, then stood back and punched him once in the face before letting go. 

The man dropped to the ground and didn’t get up; still, Cassian lowered his gun and fired one bullet into his brain to make sure he never would. 

He stepped over the dead corpse and kept walking, the gun in his hand already reloaded.

“Close your eyes, ” The kid dragged herself up to John on her elbows and whispered next to his ear, her voice small and frantic. “And whatever happens….”

“ _Don’t move._ ”

 _No_ , He locked his eyes with hers, unblinking; _What are you doing?_

Another gunshot. Another instant kill.

The road was cleared. Cassian did it.

 _Of course._ He could hear the other man turn around and start walking back to them; he knew that the kid heard it too. She scrambled to her feet and turned to face Cassian; she was holding something in her hand, something she pulled out from her back pocket.

It wasn’t a weapon. 

John stared, unable to process what he was witnessing. _What are you doing?_

“He’s already dead,” She started walking towards him, “You’re late to the party.”

_No. It’s not going to work. Come back._

“John Wick,” She said through gritted teeth, “Is dead. There’s nothing for you here.”

Cassian just kept walking, the look in his eyes hard and unreadable.

The kid stopped a few feet away from him. She held out her hand, showing him the object in her palm.

“Your blood,” She swallowed, the lid of the marker clinking against the metal in her trembling hand. “Your oath,”

She took another step towards the man.

“Your shackles.” 

She had Cassian’s marker.

John exhaled. _She’s safe. Cassian cannot touch her. He’ll let her go. As long as she doesn’t get in his way, he won’t risk breaking a High Table rule to—_

She pressed down on the small lock on the top of the marker, and the rusted lid sprang open with a crisp snap.

_No, no, no…._

“Honor it,” She handed the marker to him. “Let us go, and you’re free.”

 _You stupid, stupid girl,_ John Wick finally closed his eyes. 

He felt a single bitter, hopeless tear slid down the side of his face as the creeping darkness around them eagerly engulfed him.

**_Atlas_ **

Cassian took another step forward, and I slowly started to back away. 

“Fine,” I gritted my teeth, “You want to end up like him?” I pointed to the man lying on the ground behind me. “You wish, Cassian. You wish. He broke a _Continental_ rule. You know what the High Table will do to someone who disrespects their traditions? Their mercy starts with death, and by then, you’ll _beg_ for them to grant it to you.”

He said nothing. The look in his eyes didn’t change; he didn’t stop walking, and I didn’t stop backing away.

He wasn’t listening to me. What else is new?

I stepped back onto a hand. I looked down; John was unresponsive to my foot—Or the pain. I wanted to kneel down and check his pulse, but I knew it would only give Cassian a chance to attack. Not that he didn’t have a chance now—Or in the past five minutes—I wasn’t on Cassian’s level, not even close. 

If he wanted to kill us both right here, right now, he wouldn’t even need to reload his gun. 

But I wouldn’t run. 

So I stood there, right in front of John Wick’s body, as Cassian towered over me, his cold brown eyes still two haunted lighthouses in a sea of darkness.

I wouldn’t run, because I was the only thing standing between a possibly dead John Wick and a man who wanted, more than anything, to make that possibility a certainty. 

_You think you know me, Cassian? You think you got me all figured out? You haven’t seen nothing yet, Camorra’s little watchdog._

“Go on then,” I threw the marker onto the ground and reached into the hidden pocket of my hoodie, pulling out a knuckle knife—my only weapon left.  
“Pull a gun on me.” 

He didn’t move nor speak, but he finally tore his eyes away from John and looked at me. 

“Come on, you _coward!_ ” I took a swing at him, expecting him to block, or at least dodge it. 

He did neither. 

The blade of my knife opened up a long, straight cut on Cassian’s left cheek; I watched, as the blood, a blackish-brown instead of crimson under this starless night sky, started running down the side of his face to caress his rock-hard jaw.

He slowly turned back to me, his face still expressionless.

I was hoping to distract him, or at least get him to step away from John—but he didn’t even budge an inch. I lashed out again, and this time, he’d finished analyzing my patterns. 

I’d forgotten how sharp he was. 

He caught my wrist without even moving his feet, and dug two fingers into my lower palm. It didn’t hurt, but my fist opened up by itself and dropped the knife.

I punched him across his face with my other hand, just on the very spot where I landed a cut a few seconds ago. Specks of blood flew and stained the back of my fist, wiping out the dried with the fresh. 

It wasn’t a very good punch. 

I didn’t see him move, but he caught that hand in his grip, too, and held it there. He still hadn’t said a word.  
I kicked at his shin and struggled to wrestle my hands free. “Let go of me,” I growled.

And he did.

I lost my balance, stumbled backwards and tripped over one of John’s outstretched limbs. I fell. 

Pathetic. Falling for the same tricks, over and over and _over again_ –

I glared at Cassian from the ground. He glared back. 

I half-wished he’d make a move, or at least reach for his gun. Guns make Cassian easier; when he’s holding a gun, I always have a better chance figuring out what he wants. I have no idea how to deal with him when he’s like this—silent and unresponsive, his dark eyes filled with something burning, something dead.

Those eyes now turned to the man lying next to me, and mine followed them. 

He didn't look like he was breathing.

Maybe that was why Cassian didn't make a move; because he believed me when I told him John Wick was dead. Because he knew that it was the truth. 

Because he knew that I'd lost.

I didn't want to look at Cassian right now. To see the blood on his cheek. His still-empty hand, unmoving. The fact that he could've killed me ten times by now but instead he just stood there, and he stood in silence.

That he knew, very well, what this silence was doing to me, that after four fucking years he could still have this affect on me, and he used it.

I turned to John and sat on my heels, reaching for the collar of his shirt.

“Wake up,” I shook him. “John, wake up.”

There was no tears in my eyes. My voice was trembling, but I knew that it was only because of the pain, which was everywhere– My burnt back. My bruised, cut face. My swollen hand, the one that should’ve healed a lot sooner had I given it the time to do so. My aching, bleeding arms, my sprained left ankle, the old and fresh grazes on almost every inch of my exposed skin….

It hurt so, so bad, just not in the one place I’d hoped it would. I knew that, because there was no tears in my eyes. Because even now, with the man I’d sworn to keep safe dying right in front of me, just a limp, poisoned cage of flesh and bones…. I could feel nothing. Anger, panic, fear, indignation, shame…. Those feelings I was more familiar with, they came from the thought of losing, but not from the thought of losing _him._

Maybe that was just the way I was. Damaged. Broken. Missing a piece, a piece I could never find.

Or maybe it was just hiding from me. Still hiding. 

“John,” I gripped his shoulders, the tip of my fingers sinking into the joints. “John.”

Maybe I was close to it. Wherever it was. _Whatever_ it was. 

Another hand appeared in my line of sight and lowered onto John’s chest, then moved towards his throat.  
Two long, calloused fingers pressed against the side of his neck, checking for a sign of life.

I turned to my left and saw Cassian crouching next to me, extending an arm. He had his eyes closed, his lips parting slightly, counting the heart rate under his breath like it was a muted, forgotten prayer.

Maybe I just needed more time. Maybe it wasn’t so foolish after all, daring to _hope._

He raised his other hand. 

In his palm, the marker I threw away a minute ago. _His_ marker. He handed it to me. 

I just stared. 

_Maybe this isn’t the end._

Cassian withdrew his hand on John’s neck and looked up at me. He offered again; this time, I snatched the marker from him and clutched it in my trembling, aching fist. I tried to glare at him, but the blood was getting into my eyes.

I blinked furiously; the red just kept sliding down, drowning my vision. 

Cassian slowly held up his hand, running the heel of his palm across my forehead and wiped the blood clean for me. 

I just stared.

His hand felt cold and dry on my skin; it carelessly rubbed against a fresh bruise above my eyebrow, sending a jab of pain to the back of my eyes. I winced involuntarily.

He lowered his hand, then he looked at me in the way he always had when he was trying to decide on the version of truth he should use.

He had given up on lying to me a long time ago. Cassian had never been a particularly good liar. 

Finally, he opened his mouth. I waited.

“Let me help.”

******

I stopped at the front door and took off my sneakers, carefully placing them beside the doormat. I remembered Cassian’s maniacal insistence on keeping his wooden floor unreasonably spotless. 

He just looked at me like I was crazy, then stepped right past the threshold with his muddy shoes on and an unconscious John Wick draped across his shoulders. 

Ok.

I closed the door behind me, limping into the living room. He had his floor carpeted; other than that, everything was right where I remembered. The row of antique bookshelves with no books. The two leather sofas crammed into a corner below the painted windows. That huge deer head mount above the filthy fireplace, which I hated. (The deer head, not the fireplace—I used to hide my knives there; it was the safest place in the entire house, since neither Cassian nor Gianna ever bother to clean it.) 

I walked past Cassian and towards the giant pot of fern next to the TV. The plant was dead; it had been dead the first time I’d come here, 14-year-old and soaked in dirty rain water, and scared. So, so scared. I clutched my dagger, tight, and wouldn’t let go.

I saw the brown, dried ferns and asked, _Why do you keep it?_

 _You’re ruining my floor,_ I remembered how furiously Cassian had glared at the expanding pool on his premium jarrah. Then he started to take his shirt off.  
I’d thought he was going to mop up the mess I left, but he then beckoned me over impatiently and wrapped the shirt around me, drying me off. 

_Signora,_ He called to the dark-haired woman reading a book on the sofa. _Turn up the heat._

The woman turned and glanced at us, at me, for the first time. Her hair was down; she wasn’t wearing any makeup. 

I remembered thinking that she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and that she looked nothing like a future heir of the Camorra in her pale worn out jeans and beige turtleneck sweater.  
_This is her?_ She said, her Italian accentless compared to Cassian’s. She sounded like her tongue was made from the finest silk instead of a chunk of lumpy, inelegant flesh like the rest of us. 

_Dio mio, Cassian, what have you done?_

It didn’t feel like five years ago. 

I bent down, reached for the handle behind the pot and pulled. I quickly backed away, waiting for the hidden wall bed to spring out like a Jack-in-a-box, knocking out one or two of my teeth in the process. 

It slowly separated itself from the wall around it and lowered, smoothly, onto the ground.

I looked to Cassian. 

“You fixed it.”

He walked past me and dumped John onto the bed.  
“You remember where the first-aid kit is?” He took out a pillow from the space under the mattress.

“Same place?”

“Same place,” He grabbed John’s hair with one hand and lifted his head up, putting the pillow under it. He adjusted the pillow a few times before letting go of his hair.

“Could’ve just cradled the back of his head,” I commented, then immediately regretted saying it outloud after I saw the look on his face. “Or not,” I added carefully. “You do you.”

He continued to glower. 

I reached into the pocket of my hoodie and pulled out the syringe I collected from John’s neck earlier. “We need to find out what they put into this,” I took a brave step forward: “Go to a hospital, or a lab…. Get someone to test it.” 

His expression didn’t change. 

“Or I can go,” I took that step back: “Absolutely. Unless you want to go. Then I will let you. No, not let. _Allow._ No, that’s worse. This is your house, forgot. Right. All I’m saying is that if you wanted to go and test this thing and get an antidote and save his life or something, I, uh, _wouldn’t be opposed to it_ –”

Cassian suddenly reached over and snatched the syringe out of my hand.

He left without a word.

*****

Two hours later, Cassian walked in through the front door. I scrambled to my feet–I was dozing off next to the bed–and waited for him to speak.

He glared at me and said, slowly, through gritted teeth:

“What the hell is that _thing_ doing here?” 

I looked to the duffle bag I left by the fireplace. 

“My stuff got blown up,” I explained to him: “In an explosion. There was an explosion. I went home to, uh, fetch a few things.

Actually, I had a private stash kept two blocks away from here. But he didn’t have to know. 

“My clothes. I need my clothes.”  
And my guns. And knives. And more hand grenades, because I didn’t trust your untrustworthy ass and was planning on shoving one down your throat with absolutely no hesitation if you try anything.

“I couldn’t have been more clearly,” Cassian inhaled: “Talking about that raccoon chewing on my _wallpaper._ What in the….”

I looked to the raccoon, who was, indeed, chewing on his wallpaper. “This is Bob,” I introduced proudly: “He was outside one of your windows.”

“I do not,” He inhaled again and closed his eyes: “Care what its name is, or where it came from. Get it out of here.”

I considered for a few seconds. “But it’s cold outside,” I tried to reason with him. “I don’t think Bob will be giving you any trouble–”

“Great, now it’s stealing my money,” 

I looked to the raccoon, who now, indeed, had a tiny claw rifling through Cassian’s wallet. 

“You’re rich,” I tried again; “Raccoons are low-maintenance and highly intelligent animals, ideal pets for lonely middle-aged men–”

“Are you going to live here?” He interrupted me, his voice harsh.

“No,” I swallowed.

“Are you going to help me look after it?” 

“No?” 

“Get it out of my house.”

I took a step towards the raccoon. He looked up, stood on his hind legs, immediately fled up the stairs and disappeared into the dark, taking Cassian’s wallet and all of the money with him. 

I turned back to Cassian. He looked like he was hyperventilating, in a calmer and scarier way. 

I took a deep breath before saying, nervously, “I’m sure Bob will be fine–”

“–Sedatives.”

I blinked. “What?”

“The stuff they gave him,” He looked down at John; “It’s a cocktail of heavy sedatives and muscle relaxants. He should be able to walk in a few hours.”

I tensed. “His breathing–” 

“Not an issue,” Cassian shook his head, “Doctor said they’d measured the percentage and made sure it wouldn’t interfere with his breathing or blood flow.”

_What?_

A hundred million. Why the hell would anyone pass on a hundred million when it’s right under their noses?

“They wanted him alive?” I said under my breath. “But how…. Who would….”

I trailed off when I noticed the way Cassian was looking at me. I subconsciously reached behind my waist and felt for my dagger. 

“If you have anything to tell me, kid,” He said, his voice calm and measured. “ _Now_ would be a great time to do it.”

 _That’s my line,_ I thought, bitterly. 

But this wasn’t about me, or Cassian. Or _us._

This was about John. 

My marker. My….

“I’m going to keep him alive,” I swallowed, holding Cassian’s gaze. It wasn’t easy. Still wasn’t. “He’s my ward.”

“So if you have a problem with John Wick, you go through me. But you can’t, because I’m holding your marker, therefore protected by a High Table rule. Unless you kill us both here and now, so there would be no witness around and you can arrange the scene to make it look like an accident. Which is very easy. If that was your plan all along, then, yeah, I wouldn’t be able to stop you. But I don’t care. You’d still have to go through me.” 

We glared at each other. 

Finally, Cassian yield. He looked away and squeezed his eyes shut like I was giving him a migraine.

“You’re dripping blood,” He sighed, “On my carpet. Get into the shower and take off your clothes.”

*****

I sat crossed-legged on the shower floor, my bare thighs touching the cold, smooth marble. I shivered. 

I found Cassian’s wallet abandoned by the bathroom door once I got to the second floor; it was already empty, and Bob was nowhere to be seen. I toyed with the broken zipper, yanking it off the fabric then wedging it back. I hoped it had been like this before Bob got his hands on it. 

There was a loud _thump_ at the door. Cassian walked in with the first-aid kit in one hand. 

“The hell’s in your bag? Bricks?” He panted and held a hand up to his chest.  
Weird. I didn’t think I’d ever heard Cassian _pant_ before. 

Must be his age catching up. 

“No one asked you to carry it up the stairs,” I went back to playing with his wallet. 

“You think letting that man go near any form of a weapon when he woke up from a coma, alone, in a house he doesn’t recognize, is a good idea? You go downstairs to check on him first then. Be my guest.”

Technically speaking, I _was_ his guest. 

“Keeping my bag from him won’t help,” I muttered, tearing off a small piece of his wallet by accident. “He could use your fridge magnets as throwing stars.”  
I tried to fit the piece back onto the wallet, but to no avail. 

Cassian finished putting things he needed into the kit, snapped it shut and lifted it up by the handle. 

He opened the door of the shower, saw me, and immediately put a hand up to his forehead. 

“Why on _earth_ do you have your pants off?” He half-groaned, “I needed you to take off your shirt.”

“Instructions unclear,” I protested, “You said _clothes_.”

“Put your pants on,” He ordered. “Get yourself out of that goddamn kavlav armor—How did you even _soak_ a kavlav armor with blood, jesus christ—And take off the shirt. _Now._ ” 

“I _can’t,_ ” I dropped his wallet onto the floor. 

“There’s something wrong with my arm.” 

It was the truth; I couldn’t raise my hand or reach behind my back. It hurt, then it didn’t, and now I wasn’t sure.

“I’ll look at it,” He said, simply. He left the shower again, then came back with a thick white towel and a scissor. He tossed me the towel for me to cover up my legs and sat down behind me, putting the scissors down with a small _clink_. 

He slowly removed my body armor.

A dramatic sigh. 

“What color was your T-shirt?”

“White.” I rolled my eyes. What kind of stupid question…. 

“You have to stop wearing white shit to work, you know.”

He picked up the scissors and started cutting my T-shirt off me from the sleeves. 

“It’s melted into your back,” He informed me. 

“I know,” I gritted my teeth. “Just…. Do it quick. Please.”

Cassian separated the fabric—and possibly the skin—from my back with a calculated, infuriating and incredibly painful _slow_ ness. 

“You said there was an explosion?”

“Yeah.” I replied dryly, my voice hoarse. “How bad?”

He shifted behind me, looking for something in his pocket. A few seconds later, I heard a single camera shutter noise. “What happened to your Nokia?” I asked, and once again, not really caring. “I thought you hated smartphones.” 

“I lost it during an accident on public transportation,” He passed his phone to me, showing me the sight of my back. 

“It’s fried.” He added. “But nothing you can’t handle.”

 _You would know_ , I thought, pointedly. 

“I have no idea,” I put his phone down without looking at the picture he took. “What you were talking about. That’s clearly a third-degree burn and I need to go to a hospital,”

A fourth-degree burn on my body could heal in less than three days, no medical attention required. _You would know._

“If you really want to go,” He reached over my head and turned on the tap, wetting a piece of cloth with cold water. “I’ll drive. We’ll see what the doctors have to say about your _third-degree burn,_ ” He squeezed the cloth and let the water trickle down my back. It felt good. I shivered involuntarily and bit back a moan. 

“They’ll say it’s a third-degree burn, then they will treat it like a third-degree burn. Which it is.” 

My back would look perfectly fine except for the two giant scars in the middle and some dry, flaky patches of skin by the time we get to the hospital. The doctor would tell me to put on sunscreen then charge me 300 bucks.

 _You would know_ , I clenched my teeth. 

“Of course,” He took another dry cloth and dabbed my back lightly. It still stung. “And if they test your blood, they certainly wouldn’t find any sedatives in it,”

Son of a bitch.

“I don’t have any,” I replied flatly. “She got John. She didn’t get me.”

“There’s a puncture hole right there on your forearm. Thought you should know,”

Shit.

“That’s because,” I lied, “I’ve been doing drugs. Shooting up some, uh, _weed_.”

I could hear Cassian’s eyeroll all the way from here. 

He quickly sterilized the entire burned area with alcohol and without giving me single heads-up—stung like a _son of a bitch_ —then proceeded to stripped the remains of my once-white T-shirt off me. 

“Now let’s take a look at that arm,” Cassian wiped the blood on his hands clean on the towel covering my knees. “Which one?”

“Left.”

He took that wrist in his hand and pulled it away, slowly, from my lap. He straightened my arm and held it up to inspect it. 

There was a strange, cold throb on the inside of my upper arm. My eyes watered; I reminded myself to breath. 

“Atlas,” He said my name. Oh no.

“Do you know about the _liscense plate_ in your arm?”

It must’ve landed there when the car got blown up.

“No,” I inhaled.

“So that’s where all that blood came from.” 

“Not all of it came from _me_ , you know,” I said dryly, “You should see the other guy.”

I felt Cassian shake his head behind me. “Think I’ll pass,” He muttered under his breath.  
“I’m gonna have to get it out. You ready?”

“No.” My breath came in quick pants; my vision blurred. 

“I’m gonna count to three,” His hand slid up to my elbow, gripping it tight. 

I was _so_ going to kill John for this. 

“Ok,” I squeezed through my teeth.

“Three,” Cassian said and yanked the piece of metal out of my arm at once. 

The world turned black for a moment…. Then the colors came rushing back. The pain was excruciating. All the air in my lungs left me; the water in my mouth dried up.

Cassian dropped the shard—it was the right half of a “4”, I saw out of the corner of my eyes—and immediately closed his hand around my upper arm, squeezing it, hard, to stop the bleeding. I writhed and screamed, trying to wrestle my arm free from his grip; he cursed under his breath and wrapped his other arm around my shoulders from behind, pulling me back into him and holding me down.

“Let go,” I strained.

His hand came gripping almost painfully tight on my bare shoulder; his inner forearm pressed flat against my collarbone.

Then, I did something incredibly stupid.

I looked down.

There, on his rock-hard forearm, four tiny, bluish nubs stood out from the rest of his scars. 

I just stared at them, the pain in my own arm half-forgotten.

_“Three,” He dug his finger into the bullet wound on my thigh and, at the same time, shoved his arm in front of my face. I clamped down on it, hard, to muffle my scream. The taste of his blood was warm and shocking in my mouth._

_He found the bullet. It fell onto the wet, moldy basement floor, an echoey clang; I released his arm and stared at the bite mark I left, at the four dots of blood seeping from the spots I’d sank my canine teeth into._

_“Doesn’t it hurt?” I asked._

_“Yes,” Cassian didn’t look at me. “Yes, it does.”_

_“Then why?”_

It didn’t feel like five years ago.

“Lie back,” Cassian leaned down and said into my ear. He still had an arm around me.

“It’s ok.” 

_Fuck you,_ I thought, while leaning into him involuntarily, until my bare, blistered back was pressing against his chest. 

“That’s it,” He muttered, picking up a corner of my towel and started to clean up the blood on my arm. “That’s it. Breathe.”

I tilted my head back and rested it on Cassian's shoulder, drawing in a long, shaky breath.

I was _SO_ going to kill John for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, people who read and took time to comment on my fic—you guys have no idea how much it meant to me. 
> 
> ps. The history between Cassian and Atlas will soon be revealed, but rest assured, there's nothing sexual or even vaguely romantic involved in their past relationship. This will forever be a pedophilia-free fic


	21. A Ghost Story

**_Atlas_ **

Cassian smelled like sandalwood.

Well, mostly like sweat and alcohol—like, every other human person his age—but that was how I remembered him, with the smell of sandalwood; so I looked for sandalwood, and there it was—warm, clean and just the right kind of sweet.

I hated it.

“What was it this time?” I asked, staring up at the ceiling above. He’d been working on the stitches for the past ten minutes, but the inside of the upper arm was, apparently, a relatively difficult spot—and I knew that Cassian wanted everything _perfect._

“Your hand,” He muttered, adjusting the entry point of the needle and sending a jab of pain up my arm. “The way you held the karambit.”

“ _Everyone_ holds a karambit like that,” I snorted.

“No,” He deadpanned. “Just you.” He slowly pulled the thread through the second stitch. I gritted my teeth.

“It was a pretty good one, I’ll give you that. The hair and the tattoos. Still better than that one you did in Jeruzalem.”

“My disguise in Jeruzalem,” I exclaimed, “Was _amazing._ ”

“I’ll go as far as to say that Jeruzalem was a little better than Vancouver,” He stopped and wiped his hand on the towel. There was blood all over.  
“And Vancouver was a _lot_ better than Budapest. Which doesn’t say much,”

“ _We don’t talk about Budapest,_ ” I snapped.

“And I still had no idea how you spotted me in Singapore—”

“—It was very easy—”

“—It was Halloween, and I was wearing a _mask_ —”

“—And?”

“I was at a _Saw-themed parade_ ,” I reminded him: “Wearing a _jigsaw mask_ like every single one of the _five hundred people_ around me—”

“A hunchbacked seventy-year-old with a walking cane bumped into you,” Cassian stated, his voice flat: “And you called him a ‘thundercunt’.” 

“I’m sure,” I replied dryly, “That any person in my position would’ve reacted the same way—”

“No,” He gave the thread a firm tug; “Just you.”

“Oh, is that why you’re literally the only person on earth who could see through my disguises?” I snapped back.

“I’ll have to kill you one day if you keep this up, you know.”

Cassian didn’t respond. No comebacks, no caustic remarks, not even a dismissive huff.

I shifted in his arm, turning my head to the side to look at his face. He briefly glanced down at me, frowning. 

“Hold still,” He muttered, and quickly turned his attention back to my arm.

I stared up at his face. At the cut I left on his cheek. He hadn’t cleaned it; the blood had already dried up. 

Was it physically possible for him to die from that cut if he allowed it to get infected?

I’d been fantasizing about Cassian’s death since we went our separate ways four years ago.  
I was constantly praying for a tree to fall on top of him during his morning jog, or a massive lightning bolt to strike him dead when he was driving through a thunderstorm late at night…. It seemed much more plausible to wish for a headshot, giving the line of work he was in; but I’d seen him in gunfights, and the bullets just never seemed to touch him. 

_Except for that one time…._

I didn’t hate Cassian, not really. I still wasn’t sure what that meant, to hate someone;  
I guessed it had something to do with caring. That you’d have to care an awful lot about that someone for you to hate them. 

Care, that I understood. At least more than I understood love or hate. But it was difficult for me to care about people other than myself, even after years of practicing; what I felt most often—what I was most familiar with—was a _want._ I wanted Cassian to die. I wanted John to live. 

I wanted my marker honored.

I didn’t think I’d actually hated anyone; not even Cassian, certainly not Gianna— though I’d wished for her death, too. Then it happened. And that was it. 

I didn’t blame them for what they did. For what _he_ did. I didn’t want vengeance, no; but Cassian was a complication. A threat.  
And he tend to get in the way. 

However, though I might not need to call in Cassian’s marker, I needed answers. Many, many answers.

I opened my mouth.  
“Wh—” _Why did you help? What changed your mind? What are you going to do with John Wick? Why did you come back?_

_And why **didn’t** you, Cassian?_

_Where did it go wrong?_

In the end, I just asked the one question I already had the answer to. 

“Why didn’t you duck?” I said into his collarbone, tasting the salt on his skin.

_Doesn’t it hurt?_

But I knew. I knew it did. 

And slowly, I began to realize that I _wanted_ it to.

**_Cassian_ **

There was this story I’d heard years ago, in Birmingham. 

I said no to the task–to the Camorra–at first. Told them to send someone else. It was a clean-up job, an easy one, and way below my paygrade. But then my ward, the future heir of the Camorra, said to me with a wine glass in hand: “Get the _fuck_ over yourself, Cassian.” 

So like that, I got over myself and on the flight to England.

I knew little about what was waiting for me then, even after I’d arrived at our supposedly corrupted informant’s door, with a gun and an empty body bag slung over my shoulder.

Few things I remembered about the man in Birmingham, the man who didn’t betray the Camorra. The man who told me a story. 

One of them was that he was very old, far older than I’d expected. He sat there facing the fireplace and away from me, his thin, white hair stained orange by the flickering flames. He was making a sound with his hands, like he was peeling some kind of fruit with unusually thick skin. That was another thing I remembered about the man in Birmingham, that wet, sticky sound, never-ending. 

“You haven’t been reporting back to us lately,” I said behind him, my gun already pointing down at the back of his head. “We’d like to know what’s going on.”

He didn’t turn around to look at me; his hands just kept moving, still peeling the fruit. A single hiss rose from the fireplace and fell. Some juice must’ve dripped onto the flames.

“He’s almost finished, you know,” He croaked, his voice half-drowned by the crackles of the burning wood. 

“Who?” 

If he’d actually betrayed us and had been selling information to his new employer, like the head of the Camorra had assumed, I’d have to bring back a name. At least the name of his handler. 

This was the worst part about clean-up jobs. All the _talking._ I’d risen through the ranks only to avoid it, yet there I was. 

I tightened my grip on the gun, squeezing out a small click. “Who have you been talking to?”

He didn’t seem to have heard me. He brought his hands near his face, like he needed to closely inspect a rotten spot that he would carve out later. I still couldn’t see what fruit he was holding.

“He said that she would be _magnificent_ ,” He murmured. “His masterpiece. He said she would bring us the ending, one that we all deserved—”

“A sweet, sweet armageddon.”

I slowly lowered my gun. I didn’t know what I was doing; I didn’t understand his words.

But somehow, I knew that I had to listen. 

The man in Birmingham told me a story, and all the while there was that sound in the background, that wet, sticky sound, never-ending. 

“He’s made mistakes. Lots of them. But he’s a scientist, and that’s the whole point of _experimenting._ So he could make mistakes. So out of hundreds of millions of failures, he could have one light bulb that held the light. A _miracle._ ”

He tossed something, a peel, or a pit, into the flames. This time the hiss was longer, and the wood rattled.

“That’s what he calls her. A miracle. Isn’t it funny, how men like to play God?” He laughed, and I winced at the grating sound.

“He thought I would bow down before his throne. That he could make me believe.”

Another hiss. When the stench finally hit me, I’d expected it to be the dry, molassy sweetness of burnt sugar. 

It wasn’t.

“So I took her. I did. His _miracle_. Just when he’s _almost_ finished his work. And _look_ —” 

He slowly stood up and turned to me, holding out both his hands. 

“ _Look_. Is _this_ what you call a dragon?” He giggled, unable to contain his pride. 

“Where are her wings, the skin tough as steel? He said he’d put fire in her veins, so that none in our world could burn through her—But _look_ , it was easy, it was _so easy_ —” 

He laughed and laughed; I just stared at the corpse of an infant he held in his shriveled, bloodied hands, the infant whose skin was peeled from head to toe— _like a fruit_ —and whose once curious, searching eyes were now just two empty sockets with bits of flesh left attached to her delicate skull. Later, I would find those eyes in the fireplace, burnt to pieces of splintery coal along with her skin and fingers.

Later, I would find that he’d ripped her throat out first, so she couldn’t make a noise. So I’d never heard her scream, but only that wet, sticky sound, never-ending.

But now, I could only stare at her chest, that tiny, skinless chest, turned inside-out with bare hands…. And I saw that she was still breathing. 

It was me who had to kill her in the end. Put a bullet in her head. 

Few things I remembered about the men in Birmingham, the man who told me a story.

One of them, was that he had a two-month-old granddaughter. And I would never know the color of her eyes.

That sunday morning, I walked into the Camorra’s head office with the body bag slung over my shoulder, now carrying the weight of a recent death. 

“You got a name for me?” He asked without looking up at me, or the body I brought him.

“No.” I threw the corpse onto his table with a loud _thump._ He slowly lifted his head, threw an irritated glance my way before going back to his newspaper. 

“He went mental,” I added; “That was it. Just some crazy old man.” I left out the bit with the infant that was skinned alive. Or the bit where I’d buried her tiny, broken body in the backyard with my trembling hands.

_I know why you sent me. Because **you** have the name. _

_You know who did that to him._

“I would like you to come work for me, Cassian,” He said abruptly, still not looking up. You passed the test.  
“Consider it a promotion.”

“What you would like is none of my business, _signor_ , ” I replied calmly,

“ I just work for your daughter.”

And like that, I turned and left. 

Two days later, the Head of the Camorra tried to have me killed. Gianna threw a fit when she found out about it; she went and started a yelling match with her sixty-eight years old father at three in the morning, which _I_ was forced to participate in. 

“I just don’t understand why you’re so upset,” He gestured vaguely in the air: “So _what_ if I got him killed? We’ll find you another tall, useless menwhore to play with in no time. Don’t worry.”  
“Now listen to me, you old fuck,” She jabbed a finger at me and roared, “I want _this_ tall, useless menwhore to play with!”

It was the longest thirty minutes in my entire life.

The next day, they had dinner together. I ran into the Head of the Camorra outside his office that night when he came back, staggering and drunk on expensive wine. 

“You’re like a son to me, Cassian, you hear me? Like a _son_ ,” He grumbled, cradling my face in his hands.

I worked for a weird family. 

I’ve never told anyone what really happened in Birmingham, about that infant without a face. Well, anyone other than Gianna. I’d never keep stuff from her. A year passed, then another; when I’d heard about the Dragon again, it had been three years, and I’d forgotten all about Birmingham. 

How could I have forgotten a sight like that, you might feel compelled to ask? But that’s what people in our line of work do: We forget.

At least we try to.

They spoke of a strange frenzy occurring in different areas in England, a brand new plague; the victims seemed to be chosen randomly, except for their connections to our world. Each and every one of them had ties to the business, be it a dealer, a buyer, a muscle…. Or simply, an informant.

And that all of them were parents. 

What I didn’t know back then, was that Birmingham was just a start. That I’d never heard the ending of his story, because there never were one. 

So like that, hundreds of children died by the hands of their mother or father, who thought they’d seen a creature with scales and poisonous fangs and wings of the devil; one came into her son’s bedroom the night before his elementary school graduation and slit his throat with a pocket knife, while another shattered his nine-month-old’s skull using a hammer.  
“I’m going to live forever,” He cackled, spooning his own child’s brain matter into his mouth like a bowl of crème brûlée. He’d thought the spirit of the Dragon would grant him eternal life; ironically, the first thing he did after the frenzy passed, after his eyes cleared and he finally realized what he’d done…. Was putting a bullet straight through his left temple. 

Not all of them had been as fortunate as our informant in Birmingham, who got a shot to the head before he had the chance to wake up; who died thinking he was the dragon slayer, and that his own granddaughter was still sound asleep in her cradle, safe from harm.

And it wasn’t just…. That.

A few months after the madness ceased, an abandoned mental hospital in Manchester went up in flames. They found bones in the remains, strange ones; they said it seemed human, except that it wasn’t. 

The bones were soon forgotten, though, after they discovered what escaped from that fire; or to use their exact words, what _started_ the fire. 

Living monsters were always more interesting than dead ones. 

People in England started telling stories, stories about a Dragon who had clawed her way out of Hell and into our world, each one of them more absurd than the last; some said she had leathery wings black as coal, and some insisted that they were blood-red, just covered up by all the asphalt. She had been the poltergeist haunting the Royal Exchange Theatre late at night, for a little while; then someone else ran into her in the underground tunnels, her bloody talons dragging out echoing screeches against the dusty concrete. A witness claimed he saw her in the middle of Three Sisters Lake during one particularly vicious winter, when the lake had frozen over. 

_“It was her,” That fisherman with deranged eyes told us;_  
_“I knew what I saw. She was standing on the ice when I got there–there **was** ice on the lake, I swear to god–and then it was gone. No, it didn’t–it didn’t **melt.** You weren’t there, mate, you don’t understand, she raised her hands–” _  
_He brought his palms together, producing a single clap._  
_“Then the ice was **gone.** All of it. But she– **it** –didn’t sink into the water. She just stood there like she had her feet on solid ground, and the lake–”_  
_He closed his eyes and shuddered._

_“The lake began to **boil.** ”_

There were tens of thousands of stories like this; not all of them were false, but they were, to say the least, only part of the truth. 

Some even said that she’d already died in the fire, except that something without a soul could never really die. Or live. 

I didn’t know what to believe then, and neither did Gianna; but those stories had painted a picture of her in our heads, a concept of what to expect. 

Then, we found out the truth ourselves.

We found out that her eyes didn’t glow red in the dark, nor was it pitch-black and soul-devouring; they were hazel, and pretty ordinary, to be honest. Her beauty wasn’t so staggering that a single look at her face could make a man go mad, and nor was she a hideous ogre with melted flesh and shark-like teeth. She was pale from the lack of sun, but looked mixed-raced—from my guess, Asian and Hispanic; she was equally inconspicuous on the streets of Seoul and Stockholm, in fact, I walk past ten girls like that per day in Rome, and have never gone for a second look. She had a temper when she got hungry, but with her rage came no hellfire of death or destruction, only mild complaining and snappy comebacks; her singing voice, although surprisingly soulful for her age, wasn’t that of a siren that could be used to lure children into the forest and drain them of their blood. 

We found out the truth, and the truth had no scales, no forked-tongues, no talons, no fiery breaths or wings that could raise hurricanes across the sea.  
They were right about her, however, about this one thing:

Atlas Greene was not one of us.

And that, still, was no excuse for what we had done to her. It was unspeakable, even for Gianna. 

The worst part was that she _survived._

I felt the kid move in my arms. I glanced down briefly. _Hey there._ “Hold still.” 

They were just eyes. Normal eyes. Hazel or dark brown, depends on the lighting. There was nothing unusual about them. They were _human._  
At least that part of her was.

“Why didn’t you duck?” She asked, staring up at my bloody cheek.

 _Because I wanted it to hurt,_ I thought.

_Because I wanted to know if you remembered what happened that night, four years ago, in that cabin in the woods._


	22. Why do you like him?

**_Atlas_ **

“You could’ve dodged it,” I continued, not really expecting a response from the man who was tending my wounds.  
“I was slow. I didn’t know you’d just stand there, _like a complete moron_ —I just wanted you to back off.” 

Cassian inhaled, dropped his eyes to my face and fixed me with a stare. 

“Is this you trying to apologize?”

Apologize.

He thought I was _sorry_ for hurting him.

“I don’t do apologies,” I said, calculating the distance between my free, uninjured right hand and the pair of scissors Cassian placed on the floor earlier. I considered taking it and stabbing him in his thigh, for a brief moment. 

“I know,” Cassian went back to fixing up my arm. “And I don’t want apologies. I just need to know if you’re gonna do it again.”

I absolutely was. “I’m not going to attack you again,” I lied effortlessly, my right hand creeping towards the scissors. 

“Relax, man. I’m literally sitting in your lap right now—”

“—The last time you sat in my lap,” He stated matter-of-factly, “You stabbed me in my thigh with a pair of scissors.”  
I withdrew my right hand. 

“I had to,” I turned away and rested the back of my head on his chest, staring blankly into the space ahead of us.

“You tried to give me anesthesia. I told you I didn’t need it.”

Cassian shook his head. “You were a weird fucking kid, you know that?” 

_Was that why?_ In my head, I was running the scissors through Cassian’s heart again and again, screaming at the top of my lungs; _Was that why you and Gianna didn’t come back? Because I was just some **weird fucking kid?**_

“Yeah,” I swallowed, the inside of my mouth feeling like sandpaper. “Yeah, I do.”

Maybe I cared about this more than I’d thought.

“Atlas.”

But was that possible? 

These feelings, they weren’t sustainable—love was sustainable, _hate_ was sustainable, and I didn’t hate Cassian. I was just…. No, frustrated wasn’t the word. I was _confused._ That was it. Confusion.

“Atlas?”

I just needed to get my answers, then I’d move on. I’d never have to think about it ever agai—

“Atlas!” A large, calloused hand grabbed my face harshly and forced me to turn around.

“Ow! Wha-uh-fuh?” I glared at Cassian, my cheeks comically squished between his fingers. He leaned down, searched my eyes for a moment, then exhaled and let me go.  
“You weren’t listening,” He stated simply.

“I was—dozing off,” I turned back to stare at the bathroom wall, “You’re not a very interesting person to listen to.”

Cassian wetted a piece of cloth with alcohol and pressed it down on my now stitched-up arm. I jolted in his grip, sucking in a sharp breath.  
“Still feeling like dozing off?” He let go of my arm and wiped his bloody hands on the damp cloth. _Son of a bitch._

“I was just asking,” Cassian continued, “If you knew who issued the quarantine.”

“Yeah, I do,” I turned my arm from side to side, then tried bending my elbow to assess the damage. 

Shouldn’t have done that.

“Ellingsworth was there. I know who his boss was.” I slowly lowered my arm. 

“Ellingsworth? Raphael Ellingsworth?” Cassian suddenly raised his voice, “How in the—No, that’s impossible.”

Middle-aged men, so close-minded. “I ran him over with a car. ” 

“No, that’s not what—” He stopped abruptly, “You _killed_ Raphael?”

“No, I ran him over with a car,” I explained patiently, “And then I drove onto his face, twice, crushing his skull flat beneath the tires. I wish I could tell you that he’d died slowly and painfully, but it was like, less than four seconds. Not very satisfying, would not recommend—”

“—You know that Raphael was my best friend, right?” 

I didn’t even know that they knew each other.  
“Then you can probably make yourself useful’, I suggested, “And tell me what the actual fuck could your ex-best friend’s boss want from a living, breathing John Wick, because right now I have only one thing in mind, and trust me—You don’t want to hear it.”

“I can’t help you,” He shook his head, “I haven’t seen Raphael in 20 years.”

He had a very interesting definition of “best friend”. 

“But I can tell you one thing: His boss isn’t the one you should worry about.”

“I’m not worried,” I lifted my arm again to let him apply the bandages, “I have a plan.”  
A terrible plan, too. But right now, it was my best shot.  
“And I know that his boss is just a middleman. There’s got to be another buyer.”

He cut off an extra length of the bandages and set it with a piece of tape. “And you know why our anonymous buyer wants him alive?”

“I do,” I swallowed. 

“They want to kill him with their own hands.”

“Yes.” _You taught me this._

“Someone hated him enough for them to give up a hundred million,” I continued; “This is personal. I don’t know him personally, not like you—You have a name in mind?”

“No,” He shook his head; “Can’t think of anyone.”

He got to be fucking kidding me.

“Not even one single name?”

He shook his head again. “No.” He shrugged. “Everybody likes John.”

That bomb on the car must’ve done some serious damage to my hearing ability.

“Say what now?”

“Everyone likes him,” He repeated his words, “They’d kill him for a hundred million, sure, but personal reasons? Unlikely.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave?” 

“—He’s always polite to everyone, you know. Friendly, even—”

“—He killed _three hundred_ people in the past month,” _One of them was **your** ward_ — “And he’s an alcoholic.”

He paused for a moment.  
“You don’t like him.”

Excellent deduction, Mr. Holmes. “No, I don’t.”

“And why is that?”

“He talks too slow,” I shrugged, “It pisses me off.”

“And?”

“He’s an alcoholic,” I repeated. 

“But that’s not the reason why you don’t like him, is it?” 

“—And he has a stupid-looking beard—”

“In fact, I don’t think you dislike him at all.”

“Oh, I don’t?”

“No,” Cassian shook his head. “I have a theory.”

“Enlighten me then.” Hit me with your bullshit, Aristotle.

“I think,” He continued, “That he’s not what you’d expected. And you don’t like being wrong. You don’t like surprises.”

_You surprised me, Cassian,_ I said to him in my head; _You and Gianna, you were supposed to—_

“Why do _you_ like him?” I asked abruptly.

The question caught Cassian off guard.  
He paused and considered for a little while. 

“.... His hair.”

_His what?_

“His hair,” I repeated, not believing my own two ears. “Ok, what about it?”

He shrugged. “It’s nice.”

“You know what,” I put up a hand, “Forget that I even _asked._ ” His _hair._ Somebody shoot me now. 

“If you really find John Wick so detestable, why are you trying to keep him alive?”

“And why are you not stopping me? Because you like his hair?” I snapped back.

He ignored me. “I have a theory,”

“Great. Can’t wait to hear it.”

“You thought he was just like you.”

“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you just said,” I deadpanned, “It’s probably the accent. You wanna try that again in Italian?”

“You thought he could see what you see. Feel what you feel. That he could understand you, and that you could understand him—” 

“—Are you done? Are you—”

“You won’t let him die, because you couldn’t stand being alone anymore.”

 _Alone?_ After four fucking years, after what they did—now he had the nerve to talk to me about being _alone?_

Cassian clearly didn’t notice how hard I was clenching my fists.  
“Remember Domenico? Santino’s bodyguard, the one with the skull necklace?” 

I inhaled. “Who?”

“That was the first time we saw you kill,” He recalled. “Gianna was starting to think that we’d got the wrong girl—you were so quiet. Too quiet. They used to taunt you all the time, just to see what you would do—what you could do—but you’d just sit there. And you’d stare. Unresponsive.”  
He chuckled dryly.  
“After Domenico, they’d learned to leave you alone.”

“I didn’t kill him, ” I seethed, “I just lost my temper—I was a stupid kid—”

“You broke his neck and paralyzed him for life,” Cassian reminded me: “Because you saw him kick a stray cat. The poor thing got in his way, he raised a foot—The next second, you were on top of him. We didn’t even see you move.”

I remembered that cat. An orange tabby with filthy, matted fur, and a limp in her hind leg. 

I remembered thinking, as I closed my hands on the man’s throat, his skull necklace wrapped tightly around my wrist, biting into the spot between his C3 and C4 vertebrae like a gleaming, metallic noose— _so this is what **anger** feels like._

“It was just a stupid cat,” I said quietly.

“So John’s puppy was just a stupid dog, too? The one that died?” Cassian shook his head. “You saw something that none of us did when you looked at that cat, kid. Something worth _killing_ for. And you thought John could see the same thing; you thought that was why he went after the Tarasovs—”

“So what you’re saying is,” I stated flatly, “I’m helping him because we both like dogs?”

“I’m saying,” He tried again, “That you think he’s able to be sympathetic towards animals. He values their lives, sometimes even more than humans’; you’re helping him, because you experience _empathy_ with animals— because you’re—”  
He halted abrubtly. 

“Because I’m what?”  
Say it, you coward. Say it. 

_I’m one of them._

“What am I, Cassian?”

He didn’t speak. 

I inhaled. “Let go of me.”

He took his hand off my shoulder. 

“Thought you were gonna get out of my lap,” He pointed out after a moment of silence. 

“No. It’s comfortable here.” I lied back and closed my eyes. “But your hand was getting sweaty.”

“And my legs are falling asleep,” He added.

“That sounds like a you problem, Cassian.”

Cassian sighed, defeated. “You want me to redo this as well?” He touched his fingers to the stitches on my stomach from the night before. 

“No, it’s fine.”

“It looks like it was done by a three-year-old who’s never seen a needle before.”

“Pretty good guess, still no. Leave it.”

“It’s not even in a straight line. It’s not gonna heal right,”

“I said leave it.”

“You don’t want to tell me the reason why you’re helping him, that’s fine,” He shook his head,

“But I seriously don’t know how you two are planning on surviving _each other_ —”

“— _Excuse you,_ ” I snapped, “ _He_ ’s the useless one in this relationship—I’ve been taking exceptional care of him for a month, he lived like a _king_ —”

“He looked _terrible_. He looked like a anorexic junkie dying of rabies—”

“It’s not my fault,” I stated, “That he insisted on having nothing but dry baguette and alcohol—”

“Baguette and Cognac?”

I blinked. “How do you know that?”

“That’s his depressed meal.” Said Cassian, matter-of-factly. 

Fantastic. “What’s his happy meal then?”

He shrugged. “Baguette and Bourbon,”

I didn’t know what I’d expected.

Cassian took the scissors and started to undo the stitches on my stomach despite my evident verbal and physical protest. “Don’t be absurd,” He said patiently as I elbowed him in the ribs again,  
“It’s half-torn already. It’s coming off either way,”

I cursed at him in my head, but stopped struggling.

“If I didn’t know John,” He muttered under his breath when pulling the filthy thread out of my wound, “I’d say that the stitches were done by his dog— Speaking of which, where is his dog now?”

“At the Continental,” I stopped and hissed when he sterilized the area with alcohol, 

“I’m taking him to Francis Welch’s first thing tomorrow. His owner insisted on it, but I—”

“Great idea,” Cassian voiced his approval. “He loves animals.”

“You— Are you serio—” What the hell was going on? “—Ok. Ok. Am I the _only_ person in the entire world who can see that Francis Welch is a scheming, bitch-faced—”

“—Hey—”

“— _Twatwaffle_ —”

“Ok. You don’t like Francis Welch either,” He shook his head, “Is there even somebody you don’t completely despise?”

“My dislike of Francis Welch,” I draw in a huge breath, “Is _completely_ justified. Have you _seen_ him at the Continental bar with Addy? _Oh, look at me. I’m a grieving mess too for the past twenty years—I know what it’s like to lose a love one, **mistress** , I feel your pain_—The bitch is totally trying to get something from her, and I’m gonna find out what it is as soon as this blows over, I’m telling you. I hope he knows I’m onto him—”

“—He did lose his brother, didn’t he? Maybe he just really wants a ‘people with dead siblings’ support group—”

“Addy practically _raised_ her sister. And they were like, a year apart. She got into the business so her sister could live a life she wanted. What did Francis Welch have? Oh yeah, that’s right—a heart-breaking story about a days-old infant who died of a cold or _whatever_ —”

“I don’t see how that’s not heart-breaking,” Cassian pointed out.

“He was a _kid_ when that happened. And his brother was an _infant._ Why the hell would he be upset about an infant’s death? Technically it wasn’t even a person, it was like saying you mourned for a sack of very soft bones—”

“Ok, that’s officially the worst thing you’ve ever said. What exactly is it that you have against human babies?”

“Against? Nonsense. I _love_ human infants, their meat is incredibly tender and flavorful when roasted on a spit.”

“I take that back. _This_ is officially the worst thing you’ve ever said,”

“You know what I think? I think that we should all be grateful his brother died as an infant. We don’t need another self-absorbed slut with that hideous last name walking this earth,”

“You just keep getting worse and worse, you know that?” Cassian sighed. “Addy is a grown woman, kid. She had more confirmed kills than John and I combined, she can take care of herself. You obviously care about her, but—”

“ _Care_? Me?” I scoffed. “I cut a deal with Winston six years ago, Cassian. You know that. And Addy is in the center of that deal, so for the time being, her business is my business. The Continental’s bartender could have died yesterday, and I wouldn’t give a single fuck—”

“—You know that’s not true. You and Addy—”

“ _You know it is_.” I said, my voice icy, cutting. “And you know that I _couldn’t._ I don’t know how.”

He fell silent for a second.

“Still?” He asked, finally.

I swallowed. “Still.” 

_I had a chance. I had it, I was so close— I thought I’d found my answers, but **you and Gianna** —_

“Alright,” Cassian finished the last stitch and wiped his bloody hand on my back. Oi. “I think that’s it. Unless you have a broken bone somewhere, I—”

“I’m fine,” I perched a hand on the floor and stood up with difficulty. He followed.

“Your clothes’ in the bag, right?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t bring clothes. I lied,”

“Then what’s in the bag?” He asked, confused.

“Hand grenades.”

Cassian held a hand up to his eyes. 

“Just give me one of your T-shirts,” I suggested. “And I don’t want that one with the coffee stain.”

“ _You_ were responsible for the coffee stain.”

I ignored him. “And I need to get the temporary dye out of my hair. It itches, I think it’s on my scalp—”

“I think it’s in your head,” He mumbled. 

Hilarious. “I know you don’t have shampoos, so just give me a bar of soap—”

“I do,” He turned. “I’ll go get it.”

“What? Why on earth would you need shampoo, you don’t even have hair—”

Then it dawned on me, all of a sudden.

“It was Gianna’s,” I exhaled. 

“Yes.” His voice is flat, emotionless.

“Why didn’t you throw it away?” 

Silence.

For a moment, we just stood there in his ridiculously huge bathroom, the floor a bloody mess; I couldn’t see his face, and like that, I was 14 again, always saying the wrong things to the wrong people, making the wrong choices, and that small, primitive part in me that was always telling me to _run_ and _save yourself_ was getting bigger and bigger, swallowing me whole. 

I didn’t have the strength to block it out. Not tonight.

“Cassian.” I called. 

He turned back to face me.

“Why are you helping John Wick?”  
I could hear that he wasn’t demanding an answer from me, not now. He was desperate. Baffled. _Weak._

He had another theory, one that he didn’t dare to put into words.  
And perhaps he wanted it to be true. 

“I had a marker.” 

I looked into Cassian’s eyes, and saw a sudden realization.

He remembered.  
_I do, too. I remember a lot of things, Cassian. Old and new._

“I’m sorry.” He said quietly, after a moment of silence.

“Don’t be,” I squeezed out a small smile. 

“It had nothing to do with you.”

***********

**_John_ **

He opened his eyes to see Cassian sitting in a wooden chair next to his bed, frowning. 

The frown was understandable, he’d decided; it took him longer than usual to get his aching eyes to focus and function properly, so from Cassian’s perspective, John had been blinking aggressively at him for two full minutes without uttering a single word.

What wasn’t understandable, was that John survived. 

And the fact that Cassian was sitting there, looking at him, looking _really good—Where did that come from?_  
Clearly, what John’s brain had meant to imply was that Cassian looked _fine._  
_That’s worse._  
Let’s just go with the word _healthy._

Cassian looked like he was in surprisingly good health, for a man who’d just had a heart surgery a month ago.

He opened his mouth to asked about his injuries, or to congratulate him on his speed recovery, or to—apologize? For stabbing him? For killing Gianna? For the blood he’d left on his bedsheet? _Wait, the last part doesn’t sound right—_

“How’s the kid?” His voice was horrible, so he tried again. This time nothing came out. Cassian gave him an odd look. 

“Pissed off,” The familiar British accent rose from the floor on the other side of his bed. “And severely dehydrated. But she’s breathing, if that’s what you want to know.”

Cassian sighed dramatically, stood up from the chair and took the glass of water he’d prepared for John with him. 

He turned his head, his eyes following Cassian across the room until the kid fell into his line of sight.  
She was sitting crossed-legged on the floor beside the bed, opposite from Cassian’s chair; there was something like a map laid out in front of her, and she scribbled furiously on it with a red pen. Cassian handed her the water; she took it and downed the whole thing in one single gulp, then passed the empty glass back to Cassian without looking up.  
“That was your sixth glass in the past hour, by the way.” He stated flatly while walking back to his chair.  
“I was serious when I told you to leave me a bucket,” She wrote something on the corner of the paper, then flipped it to the back and started scribbling again. She didn’t look at John.

Cassian sat down again. John tore his eyes away from the girl and turned to look at him. 

They glared at each other.

Five seconds passed, and then ten; then the intro saxophone solo of George Michael’s _Careless Whisper_ started playing in the background, and— _What the fuck?_

Cassian just sighed and looked over to the kid, who was now playing the song at full volume on her phone. 

“No.” Was all Cassian said. 

“I thought you two could use some—”

“No.” 

She hit pause. 

“That’s my favorite song,” John voiced his support. 

Cassian cleared his throat. He turned, and the man was staring at him again.

He swallowed a few times to make sure his voice was normal before speaking. He gazed into Cassian’s eyes, his dark, beautiful brown eyes— _Wait, what?_

“I thought you wanted to kill me.” He blurted out without thinking.

_Great job, John. Why don’t you remind him of that time you brutally murdered his best friend too while you’re at it._

“I still do,” Said Cassian, slowly, matter-of factly, not taking his eyes off his. 

Truth be told, John wasn’t even listening anymore, not with Cassian being so dangerously close to him, with Cassian looking at him like _that_ — He _heard_ Cassian, of course, he heard his soft, soothing voice, a voice like music in his— _What the hell is going on?_

“I still want you dead, but I’m not doing this in front of your kid.”

“For the record,” She spoke up again, “I’m not his kid. He’s like, my adult. Anyway, please don’t mind me— I’ll be in the kitchen if you two needed five minutes for make-up sex.”

To that, the two grown-ups replied simultaneously. “Don’t push your luck, kid,” Cassian growled; and John, at the same time: “Five minutes?”

The kid finally looked up at him for the first time, slack-jawed and unblinking. Cassian put his face in his hands.

_Shit._

“What I meant was,” He took a deep breath, “We need to talk. There’s a lot to sort out between Cassian and I, and I don’t think five minutes will suffice—”

“I think,” Cassian lifted his head, “That there’s a lot to sort out between you and the kid, too.”

John nodded, slowly. He looked to the girl. 

“We need to talk,” He said.

The kid put a final line in the middle of her paper, which was unsettlingly straight. She stood up.

“You want to talk?” 

She glared down at him, and John suddenly regretted to have ever suggested the idea.

“Let’s talk.”


	23. A job to do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this long and messy chapter, we get to revisit John Wick's slutty, slutty past as a con man.(It's canon in the comics, so I have to.) Also, it's just three barely functioning humans who need to calm down trying to have a conversation with each other(Spoiler alert: It didn't work)

**_John_ **

_Let’s talk._

He’d actually given a lot of thought to what he should open with. _Hey kid, I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I shouldn’t have left like that. I shouldn’t have wandered off into a god damned quarantine like some amateur idiot. I shouldn’t have pulled a gun on you, I panicked and that was entirely unnecessary. We’re 100% fucked and it’s my fault; thank you for saving me again, so I could live to find out that Cassian’s alive and ok and oh god I’ve missed him—  
What the hell is wrong with me?_

The kid’s murderous glare intensified as the silence between the three of them went on. He opened his mouth. 

“You cut your hair,” He said, staring up at the fading black streaks left in her natural light brown.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

“Cassian?” Her voice was surprisingly, blood-curdling calm. “Check John for a possible concussion,”

“You cut your hair. I thought it was a wig,” 

Cassian bent down and rummaged in the first-aid kit next to his chair, pulling out a LED medical pen light. He slid his fingers into John’s hair, cradling his head from the side, and placed his thumb above John’s left brow to keep his eye open. 

He shone the light into his left eye to observe the pupil response. It was blinding. John winced out of reflex, and the grip on his face tightened. 

Cassian’s hand was softer than he’d imagined.

“I’m not a barbarian, John. I use hand cream,”

He said it outloud. He couldn’t believe he’d actually said it outloud. _What the hell is going on with me?_

“You have a concussion, that’s the hell that’s going on with you. Relax.” Cassian tucked the pen light away and shoved a finger in front of his face. 

“Follow this,” He slowly moved his finger from left to right. 

Cassian had surprisingly prominent collarbones. He wondered why he’d never noticed them before.

“Because you weren’t supposed to.” Cassian took the hand off his face and started to button up his own shirt.

“I said it outloud again didn’t I. God dammit,”

“Don’t worry about it,” He reassured John before sitting back down and looking up at the kid.

“It’s bad.” He concluded. 

“Say ‘No, he’s fine’.” Her voice was calmer than ever, and it sent a shiver down his spine.

“....No, he’s fine?”

The kid raised her right hand and punched John across his face, hard, before anyone could react.  
“Yeah, because that’s definitely going to help,” Cassian mumbled under his breath, defeated.

It was a good punch. A simple, yet effective straight punch perfected by years of experience and pure, unfiltered rage.

It wasn’t hard to tell from the look on her face(and possibly, the intense pain in the bridge of his nose), that she demanded an apology. He opened his mouth to say _I deserved it. I’m sorry that I fucked up—_

“Someone was at the safehouse. They found me.” He propped himself up on one elbow,

“Your plan was terrible.”

She took another deep breath. “I’m going to give you one minute, Jonathan Wick,” The calmness in her voice didn’t change: “And you’re going to tell me what you did to my house.”

“I didn’t do anything,” He replied, dumbfounded, “Someone was there. They left a note at the front door—”

“A note,” She reached into the back pocket of her jeans, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper.  
“You mean _this_ note?” 

“Yeah,” He confirmed for her after squinting profusely at it for thirty seconds. “That’s the one.”

She balled the paper in her hand and threw it at his face. “This _note_ ,” She announced, “Is the official update request form for that hundred million contract of yours, you _dumb little bitch._ This shit was straight out of New York’s Accounts Payable Department—”

“Hold on,” Cassian chimed in. “That’s not possible. What goes in the Operating Center stays in the Operating Center—”

He picked up the paper ball and flattened it out, shining his pen light through the stamped-on mark at the bottom. 

“ _Mio Dio_ ,” He breathed, “It’s authentic.”

“What. Did. You. Do?” She gritted her teeth.

“Kid,” Cassian called. “Where did you find this?”

“Shut the _fuck_ up!” She lifted her head and yelled at the other man. 

Cassian closed his mouth with a click.

“What did you do to my house, you piece of shit?” She demanded again.

“I didn’t do anything,” He replied, even more confused this time. “You saw the note. Someone was there—”

“Someone,” She inhaled, “Was _not supposed to be there_. That house should’ve been impossible for people to find—”  
“Why, because it’s haunted?” 

“You have a haunted house?” Cassian raised his voice.

“What? No, of course not. Don’t listen to him. It’s—concussion talking—”

“I lived there for a week, ” He turned to the other man, 

“The walls bleed.”

“What the fuck,” Cassian stared at him. 

“Don’t look at Cassian when I’m talking to you, bitch—”

He turned back to the kid. “I’m telling the truth. Look, if you don’t believe me, go ask the ghosts in your house.”

“I can’t talk to them. It doesn’t work like that,”

“Great, so there _is_ a haunted house.” Cassian muttered.

“I don’t understand,” He frowned at the seething teen, “What do you mean, you can’t talk to them? You were talking to them all the time—”

“—I was just messing with you, you dumb little bitch. You absolute—”

His head hurt. “Please stop calling me that,” 

“I can call you whatever I want,” She leaned down and looked him in the eyes, “ And I _will._ So answer my god damn question, _thundercunt_ —”

“That word just sounded ten times worse coming out of your mouth,” Cassian commented.

“—Wait, so how exactly does the house work? Do you even _know_ the—names— of the ghosts or—”

“I know that they come and go,” She stated flatly, “Some stay for weeks, some for months—and I know that _no one was supposed to find that house_. I fired your delivery guy and had been doing all the deliveries _myself._ What did you think I stuck you in there for? The laughs?”

“You lost me there,” Cassian chimed in, “Why couldn’t that—house—be found again?”

“Because,” She inhaled, 

“Technically, it doesn’t exist.”

“What?” They questioned in unison. 

“It doesn’t exist,” She shrugged. “Not to you, at least. Or you.”

“No,” John shook his head, “I lived there—”

“Right, then can you tell me the address of the house?” 

“Of course I can. It was—”

_Where was it?_

“It was on—”

_A street name, a landmark, a god damned district, anything—It’s in New York, definitely, but **where**?_

“I don’t…. I don’t know. I don’t remember.” 

“See?” She looked to Cassian. “Doesn’t exist.”

“No, it can’t be—” He stared at the kid. “You were talking about the surveillance cameras this morning. You had to use the window, because the cameras would catch you—”

“Appearing out of thin air, yes,” She clipped. “The house doesn’t show up on maps, on cameras, or _in your head._ You were able to find the door a week ago because _I_ opened it for you.”

“So only you can find the house, correct?” He asked. 

“Yeah, technically,”

“So you know the address?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me.” He demanded.

She gave him a blank look. “I just did.”

His headache was getting worse. Nothing about this seemed right. “You—No, this isn’t possible. Tell Cassian the address,”

She sighed. “I just did,”

“What the fuck,” Cassian stared at the two of them, horrified.

“The house doesn’t exist—the— _souls_ —come and go—” He squeezed his eyes shut, “So you—you stuck me in a fun-sized _hell_ for an entire week?”

“Wow, when you put it like that it sounds like _I’m_ in the wrong,” She crossed her arms in front of her chest, “But what I’m getting from this exchange is, you fucked up your own perfectly-functioning invisible cloak—”

“—I told you, I didn’t do anything—”

“—In turn compromising your position, and didn’t even think of giving me a call before walking out of that front door with your head in your ass and _your dick in your hand_ —”

“—I did _not_ have my—”

“—Don’t _even_ get me started on that stunt you pulled in Chinatown. Don’t fucking tell me you were lost because I know, for a fact, that you were completely capable of getting to position 4 yourself.”

He fell silent. She glared at him.

“What do you have to say for yourself, Mark Wahlberg?”

He looked to Cassian.  
“It’s an insult,” Cassian explained, not missing a beat. “Means she’s mad at you.” He showed John the image search result on his phone. 

“That’s hurtful,” He nodded.

“Hey, I thought you hated smart phones.”

“ _Stop looking at Cassian,”_ She hissed through her teeth. “I’m going to ask you one more time: What the hell was China Town about?”

_Yes, John, what was it about?_

So they’d arrived at this moment, he thought, despite the concussion making everything blurry and painful and wrong–He could feel it, deep down. 

It was here. Finally. The moment where he was supposed to _do the right thing._

He stared at the fuming teenager, at her chapped lips, the graze on her left cheek…. Then he looked into those familiar hazel eyes, the eyes cold as stone, and saw Helen. 

Which, when he thought about it, didn’t make sense. Helen’s eyes were a very different shade of hazel, and always warm. Always. Even when she was mad at him.

Slowly, he began to realize that he didn’t actually see her–He _heard_ her.

He swallowed, then opened his mouth. “I went to China Town, because–”

He heard Helen. Their fifth date, January 21st. They were at her house, sipping warm, watery wine from a broken mug. He was still scared to touch her; her fingers brushed against his when she passed the mug to him, and it took all the air from his lungs– _This is ridiculous,_ He remembered thinking to himself: _You’re a grown man, hanging out with a **friend** –_

But that wasn’t all he remembered from that night. 

“Because—”

Their fifth date, January 21st. Nine years ago. 

The day he realized that he didn’t want this to end. This…. Friendship, this _crush_ —whatever it was, he knew that it wasn’t something he wanted to lose.

On their fifth date, January 21st…. He asked her a question, _the_ question. Because he had to know. 

_“What I do,”_ He remembered gripping on her mug so tight his knuckles turned white, _“My job—does it bother you?”_  
Helen’s voice was in his head now; he looked at the kid, angry and tired and broken, and he heard what his wife had said to him on their fifth date, nine years ago, on January 21st. 

He inhaled. 

“Because I don’t need you anymore.” 

Her glare went from icy to deadpan. Cassian held a hand up to his eyes. 

The kid said nothing; he assumed she was waiting for him to elaborate. “A hundred million,” He stressed, “Do you even understand what a hundred million means?”

She shrugged. “It’s a number.”

He should have known that the kid wasn’t going to make this easy for him.  
John Wick gritted his teeth.  
“It means that it’s about time you wake up, Greene.” He locked his eyes with hers, for once not yielding to the wounding coldness in those seas of hazel; 

“Did you honestly think that this day was never going to come? That this—the two of us—was sustainable? Yes, I needed shelters, supplies, information—with a thirty million contract. At a hundred million, you’re useless to me—”

“John,” Cassian warned.

“She needs to hear it, Cassian.” He deflected without turning away from the girl or lifting the heavy, vicious calmness from his voice.  
“—I’m done with this, you hear me? I’m done with _you_ , Atlas Greene. There’s an entire city outside this door that wants me dead, and I’m done wasting my time on your nonsensical, prepubescent fantasy—”  
“John.”  
“—Come on, you can’t possibly be that naive,” He taunted, ignoring Cassian’s frustrated growl.  
“You think whoever’s holding your marker told you the truth? This is a trap, Greene, and you walked right into it. Being so inexperienced that you don’t even know how to use a _gun_ is one thing, but this—” He shook his head, and managed a stiff sneer. 

“—This is just _pathetic_. What did he say to you, hmm? He told you he wanted me to live? Trust me: If he really wanted to keep me alive, he would’ve sent someone _better_.”

The bile rose to his throat at the sight of her blank, expressionless face; he forced it back down with a deep breath. 

_Please don’t make me go on,_ He pleaded silently in his head; _Just walk away, kid._

She said nothing. The sharp gleam of anger in her eyes was now absent, along with everything else; he couldn’t read her.

“He sent you on a suicide mission,” He said, slowly, “Don’t you understand? You’re never getting that marker back, Greene. He wasn’t calling in a favor. He’s using my contract to get you killed.”

The kid was still silent; she only stood there, looking down at him, her empty eyes cold as steel. 

“Just go,” He couldn’t help but let a hint of warmth slip into his business-only voice—he stopped himself, however, before he said _Just go home._

The kid could never go home, not after tonight. And she knew it.

He could only hope that she would run, and that she ran fast enough.

“Just go, kid. Your job is done.”

The silence between them seemed to have stretched into forever; but in truth, it was only a moment after when she finally opened her mouth. 

“My job,” She said, slowly, pressing down on the words like explaining basic house rules to a toddler:  
“Is to proctect you.”

He let out a broken scoff. 

_I’m sorry, Helen._

_I can’t let her die._

“Protect me?” John Wick bit down on the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. 

“You couldn’t even protect _your own mother.”_

He set his jaw and braced himself for another punch in the face, or worse, for her to break down and cry; but it was worth it, he told himself, if it got her to _leave—_

“John,” Cassian called again. “Your nose.”

He looked down, and was suddenly aware of the blood that was still gushing out of his nostrils, soaking the front of his shirt. 

_Damn it._  
He bolted upright, grabbed a fistful of the bed sheet and pressed it down on his nose; Cassian signed and reached over, taking another corner of the sheet and started wiping at the side of his face.  
“Tilt your head back,” He instructed: “And don’t look at me like that, John—I tried to tell you.”

He was just about to tell Cassian to stop fussing over him when a strange, grating noise shot up from the other side of the bed. 

Slowly, John Wick turned to face the kid, his hand still holding the stained bed sheet over his nose. 

He saw her trembling shoulders, heard the whimpers she fought to keep trapped in her throat, and thought, _oh god, I’ve done it. She’s crying._

Then her twitching face broke into a toothy, snarling smile, and Atlas Greene started to laugh.

**_Atlas_ **

“That’s gonna tear the stitches on your stomach,” Cassian stated cooly, his attention still focused entirely on getting the dried blood out of John’s beard.  
“And since this one has already ruined my bed, I’m gonna need you to do it outside if you’re planning on laughing so hard you start coughing up blood. It’s barely been a week since I last vacuumed the carpet….” His voice trailed off when he turned to spit on his palm, leaned forward, and started scrubbing at John’s chin.  
The latter just stared at me in silence, unblinking, like he’d somehow accidentally suffocated himself with the bed sheet over his mouth.

Cassian was right; I could feel the bandages on my stomach starting to come off, and if I kept laughing, my guts had a pretty good chance of ending up on his floor. 

“Sorry,” I reached for John’s shoulder to steady myself. He froze under my grip, stiff as a statue.  
“Ok. Sorry, it’s just…. Ok, I’m good. I’m done.” I sniffled and fanned at my face with one hand, drying off the tears of laughter in my eyes. 

My cheek ached from the strain of smiling, and my abs were on fire; I couldn’t recall when I’d last laughed this hard, other than that time two years ago when the news about Francis Welch got back from the hospital a week after I slammed his face into a meat grinder and put him in there, informing us that he might very well have a 85% chance of being disfigured for life. (Turned out that he didn’t, however, much to my disappointment; his two months of sick leave ended before we knew it, and Francis Welch was back as his usual charming, infuriating self, sporting a tiny silver scar above his right eyebrow as the only evidence left of the best 12 seconds I’ve ever had in my life.)

I straightened up and sighed, letting go of John’s shoulder.  
He was still staring, his jaw hanging slightly open.

“Bloody hell,” I took a deep breath. “You—ok. Ok. Believe me, John, I want to stay mad at you, I really do—But then you say some shit like this, and it’s just—come on. Come _on_.”

Cassian yanked the other end of the blood-stained bed sheet from John’s frozen fist, balled the whole thing and tossed it into a bin behind him with a flawless swish. 

“Let me get this straight: The only reason you were in Chinatown was because you were trying to ditch me? Because you think I’m not, uh, _qualified for the job_?”

Still staring. I resisted the urge to pass a hand over his eyes to see if he’d blink.

“So basically, what you’re saying is that _you,_ John Wick, the legend of our time, a supposedly trained _professional_ with over _two decades_ of experience in the field, entered a quarantine zone ordered for _you,_ by your own free will, with two bullets left in your gun and absolutely _zero_ idea what’s going on? Is that what you’re telling me?” 

Cassian turned to his chair, pulling it back a good few inches and away from the two of us before sitting down. There was a newspaper in his hand which, I was certain, hadn’t been there ten seconds ago; he unfolded the pages and started reading it. I suspected that he was only holding it up to hide his snicker.

John, on the other hand, didn’t seem amused by my amusement. 

“I don’t get the joke,” He deadpanned, barely moving his mouth when he spoke.

“No, of course–” I chewed at my lips to hold down the second surge of giggles. “–Of course you don’t. Sorry. It’s just that, I thought you were maybe, you know, going there to cut a deal with someone else, that this whole quarantine thing was like, part of your plan–”

I crossed my arms and reconsidered the man half-sitting on the bed. 

“Ok. So, you weren’t plotting anything behind my back,” I nodded. 

“You’re just an idiot. Good.” 

John Wick—the _Baba Yaga_ —wandering off into a quarantine zone like some fucking fifteen-year-old on his first day of work? Huh, talk about a badass decay. 

“What?” The simple insult seemed to have snapped John out of his trance. He blinked, in either confusion or disbelief.

“Did you even _hear_ what I just said to you?” 

“Please stop making me laugh,” I cut him off, pressing a hand to my stomach to assess the damage.  
“Yes, I heard you—you’ve made yourself perfectly clear—You’re done with this, you think that my marker is a trap, you want a better babysitter, et cetera et cetera.” I shrugged, “Anything else you’ve got on your wishlist while you’re at it? You want, uh, room service? Cold mexican beer? A ten-thousand-a-night hooker?”

He just stared at me, his face blank. _Jesus Christ._

“You’ve never seen _Johnny Mnemonic_?” I ran a hand through my hair, exasperated.  
“Right, baby boomers. You don’t watch movies, forgot.”

All I’ve ever wanted was for someone–anyone–to get my pop culture references for _once_ , was that too much to ask? 

I squeezed my eyes shut, inhaled, then opened them again.

“Anyways, now that you’ve finished your diva rant, allow me to remind you about one thing—You’re in no position to bargain, Johnny boy. You want to find somebody else to deal with your bullshit? Be my guest. Oh wait, sorry, you don’t _have_ somebody else–”

“I have Cassian,” There was a hint of desperation in his voice. 

“No you don’t,” Cassian deadpanned behind the newspaper.

“See?” I tilted my head to his side and raised an eyebrow.  
“I’m all you have left, Mr. Popular. So you either get your shit together and start acting like you know what the fuck you’re doing, or I’m gonna go for Plan B, which involves me shaving your head, tying up your vocal cords and shattering both your kneecaps with a baseball bat—”

“You’re not touching my hair.” He stared at me, the look of horror in his eyes unmistakable. 

“Then help me stick to plan A,” I leaned forward, drumming my fingers on an arm, “And tell me what on earth could someone like _Cadmus Grey_ want from you.”  
I paused for a second, then added, hesitantly: “You know that Cadmus Grey was the one who ordered the quarantine, right?”

Raphael Ellingsworth was Cadmus Grey’s right-hand man; he must’ve connected the dots himself.

“Yes,” He nodded.  
Well, that’s a start.  
“Cadmus Grey—What was it that they gave me?”  
“Just sedatives,” I replied.  
“They want you alive. Why?”

“You said sedatives?” He frowned. 

“That makes no sense.”

Why, thank you for your input. “It does, actually, when there’s someone out there who hates you enough that they’d prefer you chained up in a torture chamber rather than killed over a hundred million. Something tells me that Cadmus Grey isn’t our guy,” I cleared my throat,  
“Since he’s, uh, into a _different kind of torture_ –”

John Wick gave me a flat look.  
He didn’t get it. Whatever. 

“Look, I just need one name.” I threw my hands up . “I’m sure you can think of someone–”

“–I don’t know. I have a lot of enemies.”

“....What?”

“It could be anyone,” He shrugged. “Nobody likes me.”

I inhaled and started to count to ten in my head. _One, two, three…._

“Cassian?” I called. “Cassian, a little help?”

He let out a dramatic sigh and put down his newspaper.

“Nobody likes you?” He frowned at John. “Who told you that?” 

“Larry,” 

“Larry didn’t know what he was talking about. Don’t listen to that idiot, John. Everybody likes you.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that.” 

He turned back to me. 

“I don’t know. Everybody likes me,”

“You’re welcome,” Cassian said to me before holding his newspaper up over his face again.

My hands were shaking. I needed to sit down. 

“Fine,” I nodded. “Fine. You don’t have a name either. Let’s–Ok, Let’s go back a little further.” I took a deep breath, trying to calm the urges of slamming my head against the nearest wall. “For example, what did you do for a living–” _before you met Cassian_ “–Before you became a member of the Continental? Somebody from that time could’ve been holding a grudge against you,”

“Before I got my membership….” He looked down for a moment. “That was a long time ago,”

I waited patiently. 

“Look, it’s not something I’m proud of,” He said, proudly, 

“But I was a con man.”

I stared at him for a moment. 

“Cassian?” I raised my voice. “Is this some kind of concussion-talking, or am I losing my mind–”

Cassian begrudgingly put down his newspaper again. “I heard he was one of the best,”

“No,” I shook my head. “No. _Addy_ is an ex-con. _Winston_ is an ex-con. Listen, John, to be a con man you’d need some, uh, _basic social skills_ –”

“Yes?” He stared at me with his dead eyes. 

“Ok, how about you, uh….” I gestured vaguely. “Just, walk me through this. How exactly did you do it? Con someone, I mean.”

“Look, I don’t really know how to explain it,” He shrugged, “Back in the days, people would just walk up to me and offer me money.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah,” He nodded, “I’d be standing there, and they would come up to me and ask ‘How much?’ Then I’d say a number–”

Oh god. 

“–And they would ask if I want it now. I’d say yes, then they’d give me the money and a piece of paper with an address and time on it.” 

I gaped at him. “And?” 

“And then I wouldn’t show up.” He shook his head,

“I’ve never found out why they wanted to meet up, actually. But it was easy money, so I didn’t really care about all that.”

I didn’t even know where to start. 

“Ok, first of all, that’s not a con,” I held up a hand. “That’s called _unethical prostitution_.”

“I don’t understand,” He frowned. 

“It’s fine,” I assured him. “Just, one more question: When did this, uh, _con,_ stop working?”

“Around the time I grew out my beard. Why?”

“You mean, after you de-twinked?” I stifled a laugh.

“What does that even _mean_ –”

“Nothing that would interest you,” I waved my hand dismissively,  
“Well, it appears that Cadmus Grey is our possible candidate after all.” 

_It’s your lucky day, Luciano._

“I’ll handle this.” I patted him on his shoulder. “Leave it to me.”

“You said you’ve got a plan,” Cassian said behind the newspaper. I tossed him a dirty look although he couldn’t see it.

John cleared his throat. “What plan?”

“Oh, you’re gonna love this,” I looked back to him and grinned. 

“You’ll be getting rid of me in no time—I’m flying to England, first thing tomorrow, and have a little chat with Cadmus Grey.”

**_John_ **

“.... They offered me the job earlier today. Three million for the bastard’s head….”

Recently, John Wick had been thinking more and more about certain events in his life, and the multiple versions of them, the versions that didn’t happen. The _right_ versions.

“....In Manchester. I won’t bore you with the details….”

There was an alternative version for that afternoon in the gas station, too; it was one of his favorite, and if he closed his eyes now, he could see it, every little detail of it, from Daisy’s excited pant in the passenger seat to the deafening rap playing from Iosef Tarasov’s car.  
_“How much for the car?”_  
_“Name a price,”_ He heard himself say: 

_“Everything has a price.”_

In this version, he sold his mustang to a stranger with a russian accent and took a bus home, with Daisy asleep in his arms.  
And like that, his life just went on. He still set his alarm at 6 o’clock every morning, despite Daisy’s stubborn effort to wake him up before five thirty. He’d go shopping for groceries on weekends in Helen’s Lexus, sometimes taking the puppy with him, riding shotgun; but Daisy wouldn’t be a puppy forever, no—soon, he’d need to teach him to control his strength when playing with others, and find him a longer, tougher leash for their everyday walks in the city.

One day, when he was ready, he would even go visit Helen’s grave.  
With Daisy, of course. And daisies.  
_“Look,”_ He’d told his wife, then: _“I just taught him how to shake hands.”_

The truth was, John Wick was tired of dreaming; he was tired of picking up the pieces in his head while the rest of his world crumbled around him. 

_Just for once,_ He prayed silently, reaching behind his pillow. _Just for once, let me fix this before it’s too late._

“....Found you a place to stay, don’t worry. I’ll make sure there’s no more trouble before I leave.”  
Cassian scoffed in his seat. “That’s the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard,”  
“Shut up and read your newspaper. It’s not like I’m asking you to go with me—” 

The indignant retort died down in her throat as John Wick reached out, all of a sudden, and took her left hand in his. 

She blinked, her eyes widening slightly; the confusion was soon replaced with shock and panic, however, when he pulled out the pair of Smith & Wesson handcuffs from behind his pillow and clicked one against her left wrist.  
“What the hell are you—” “—John, don’t!” Cassian stood up, letting the newspaper fall from his lap; then he sighed, defeated, after he realized he was a second too late to stop John from fastening the other cuff around his own wrist.

“You’re not going to England.” He said, simply.

She stared at him, then down at the steel chain links between them, and opened her mouth. 

She raised her head to look at Cassian. 

“I’m not going to ask you why you keep handcuffs under his pillow, ” She said, slowly, cooly, 

“Just get me the keys.”

“I put it under the bed before I went upstairs, I didn’t—”

“Cassian,” She squeezed through her teeth, “ _The keys._ ”

“—I didn’t know he was gonna find it, alright? I figured he’d be confused and unstable when he woke up, so I—”

“—Oh, you _figured_ —”

“—I was going to restrain him first until we could be sure he wasn’t a threat—”

“—Then why on earth _didn’t_ you?” She yelled, outrage finally dawning.

Cassian stared at her for a moment.  
“Because I don’t have the keys.”

The chain links rattled. 

“You’re going to hurt your wrist,” John reminded her helpfully. 

She stop struggling for a second and looked back to him, narrowing her eyes.

“What the fuck were you thinking, hmm?” She hissed. 

“Have you completely lost your mind?” 

“Yeah, that’s what normally happens when you punch a concussed person in the face,” Cassian muttered under his breath. 

“You’re not going to England.” He said again, this time louder. 

“Let someone else deal with Cadmus Grey, that job is way out of your league to begin with and you know it. If you go after him, his men would’ve finished you long before you could get rid of your jet lag; Cadmus Grey is untouchable, kid, and with that cut on your stomach, an injured hand and a fresh third-degree burn—” He thought of the way she crawled on top of him and shielded him from the explosion, her weight against his chest a fragile, careless thing “—You’ll barely survive your flight, much less the job itself. ”

“Okay,” She took a deep breath and ran her shaky right hand through her hair. 

“And what, exactly, did handcuffing me to you contribute to this incredibly enlightening speech?”

“Nothing.” He admitted, “Nothing at all. I just needed to keep you here until the police arrive,” 

She froze. “No, you can’t—”

“Give me your phone, Cassian.” He looked over to the other man, who now had a bottle of Scotch in his lap instead of the newspaper.  
“Don’t give it to him, Cassian.” She warned.

Cassian raised the bottle to his lips and took a swig.

“I’m starting to get a little tired,” He said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “Of you people ordering me around in my own house. And just so you know, I’m not taking sides, so you—” He pointed his Scotch at John, “Won’t be getting that phone, or making any phone calls while you’re here. And you—” He raised the bottle to the kid’s eye level, “You don’t need me to remind you that going back to England is a mistake, kid. So you two either work this out like civilized adults here and now, or you can get out of my house and continue your battle of dominance on the sidewalk. Are we clear?”

“Tell him that,” She muttered under her breath. 

“Think about it, Cassian,” He tried again, “She’s a member, legally they’re allowed to detain her for up to 48 hours, and they’ll have to take her to a hospital at her request—”

“You can’t be serious—”

“Come on, they don’t want _her_. She’s not the one with a hundred million on her head, they’ll let her walk.” He inhaled, “Just call the police, Cassian. It’s the only way.”

“Stop talking about me in third person,” She snapped. “And I can’t believe you cuffed me for this bullshit plan of yours—” She halted abruptly and looked over to Cassian: 

“Oh god, did he just pull a Clarice Starling on me? He totally just pulled a Clarice Starling on me,”

“Just think about it—”

“—No,” She looked back to him, “No, I absolutely will not think about it because you have a concussion and you don’t know what you’re talking about,” She shook her head in disbelief, 

“I mean, what about you? You’re not a member of the Continental anymore, and they know about your contract—”  
Her eyes widened.

“That’s your plan. You’re giving yourself up to them aren’t you, you crazy son of a bitch,”  
She stared at him, “Why?”

“Because,” He inhaled, “Because I need you.”

Cassian groaned and put his face in his hands.

“You said your job was to protect me,” He ignored him and continued, “And you can’t do that if you got yourself killed first. So stay alive,” 

He swallowed. “ _Stay._ Do your job. Honor your marker.”

She gaped at him.  
“Ok, but didn’t you just—” She threw up her right hand, “Help me out here, Cassian. Didn’t he just tell me to fuck off like two minutes ago?”

“I didn’t say that,” He protested weakly.

“Oh, you’re right,” She nodded, “You didn’t. You said you were done wasting your time on my, uh, my _nonsensical, prepubescent fantasy_ —Was that not what he said, Cassian?”

“I’m not taking sides.” Cassian stated flatly.

She looked back to John, drawing in a long breath.

“I’m going to England,” She said, slowly, “I don’t know why you’re trying so hard to keep me here, and to be honest, I don’t care. There’s nothing you can do to stop me, John. I’ll be the last person to talk to Cadmus Grey before he dies, and I’ll find out who, exactly, is behind all this. You hear me? I’ll survive the job, get my three million, and what I do after that won’t be _any_ of your concern.”

“You’re not gonna make it,” He shook his head. “You’re hurt. You need a doctor.”

She scoffed. “For what? For that third-degree burn that doesn’t exist?”

“I know you shielded me from that bomb,” He replied, his voice soft, “I saw everything. Look, just let me call the police. They’ll get you to a hospital, then someone will take care of your back. It’s hurting real bad, isn’t it? Come on, kid, you need this.”

“My back is perfectly fine, ” She shrugged, “I was wearing a kevlar armor, remember? The heat didn’t even touch my skin, so you can stop overreacting—”

“Your hoodie was _on fire,_ ” He said patiently, “Yes, I saw that too—Your kevlar armor might be heat-resistant, but it can only do so much. I learned this the hard way, and I know how bad it is—You’re in no condition to take up a job right now, kid. Especially not one that involves Cadmus Grey.”

“Is that right?” She looked bored, “Well then, see for yourself.”  
She turned around, resting her cuffed left hand on her hip. 

“Go ahead, John. Take a look,”

He set his jaw, reached out, and carefully lifted her T-shirt with both hands.  
There was nothing.

Well, not _nothing_ —Her twinned scars remain where they were, alongside the spine; the charred, scale-like tissue around them cracked and smoothed with the rhythm of her breathing, but the rest of her back was, as she’d said, _perfectly_ fine.

“No,” He shook his head, pulling her shirt back down with a hand and brushing her hair off the neck with the other. 

Not a scratch.

“No, I saw—” He withdrew his hands as she turned around to face him, “I _smelled_ it. I smelled the burnt spots on your neck when you were trying to carry me, and I saw it, it was—”  
He realized he was trembling. “There’s _no way_ those burns could’ve healed this fast. There’s no way,” 

“John,” She took a hesitant step towards him, “You have a concussion. You’re going to get some stuffs mixed up, it’s totally normal—”

He yanked at the chain between them like a too-short leash and seized her left hand, turning it over to expose the bruise on her forearm.

“I knew it,” He stared, “Rivera got you too. You were injected with the same sedatives, weren’t you?”  
She tried to wrestle her hand back, but he held on, and he held on tight.  
“You should’ve been on the ground in mere _seconds_ , but it didn’t work on you. Why didn’t it work on you?”

“Hold up,” Cassian suddenly spoke up, “Rivera? You got knocked out by _Florence Rivera?_ I don’t understand, did you have a hand tied behind your back or something?”  
He shook his head. 

“Damn, I want a rematch.”

Before he could say anything to that, the kid had already reacted. He barely saw her move, but the handcuff slid off her wrist by itself with a sharp clink; she lunged forward, jumping up and over the bed, sweeping up Cassian’s almost emptly bottle of Scotch in her hand as she crashed into the man.  
His chair groaned under the pressure, tilted backwards and the two of them tumbled to the ground; the kid ended up sitting on top of him, straddling his chest.

She smashed the bottle in half on the table next to her, and pointed the shard at his throat.

Cassian sighed. 

“It was a joke,” He said, annoyed. 

“I was joking,”

John just stared at the empty handcuff dangling off his wrist, a straightened hairpin stuck in its keyhole.  
If she’d started picking the lock at the beginning of their conversation, he didn’t notice a thing.

“What do you mean, a _re_ match?” Her voice trembled, like she was the one who had a broken bottle pressed agaisnt her throat.

“He didn’t tell you?” Cassian sounded surprised. “Ok, get off me. You don’t need to interrogate me, it’s not like—”

Her eyes widened. “Your heart,”

“What?”

“That’s why you were panting earlier—” She dropped the bottle in her hand and reached for his collar, ripping open his shirt. 

Cassian tilted his head back and thudded it on the carpeted floor. “I just sewn on the buttons yesterday, did you really _have_ to?”

There was a jagged scar in the middle of his chest. John saw it, too; the spot where his knife had entered a month ago was still pink and swollen.  
He remembered thinking _Forgive me_ when he wrapped his arm around Cassian, tightening their embrace to deepen the wound; _The blade is in your aorta,_ he had looked the other man in the eye and said, _Pull it out and you will bleed and you will **die**. _

Like he was doing him a favor.

Like he had the right to spare someone’s life.

The kid turned, slowly, and looked up to John. He froze under her glare, and for a second, he thought that she was mad at him for hurting Cassian—He had no idea how they knew each other, but there was obviously a history between them—But then she opened her mouth, and he saw something in her eyes, something cold; something, he thought, like hatred. 

“You let him live,” She stared at him, her voice half a whisper. 

“You let him live.”

He said nothing. 

She staggered to her feet. For a moment she just stood there, looking confused, like she didn’t quite remember how she ended up here. 

Then she turned, stepping over Cassian. "Excuse me,"

“Kid,” John Wick called after her. “ _Atlas._ ”

But she was already gone.

Cassian stood up from the floor, his shirt still hanging open.  
He sat down on the edge of the bed in silence instead of righting the knocked-over chair, with his back facing John. 

“Cassian?” He stared at his only friend, and suddenly realized that he’d never known him, not really. 

Perhaps, they were both to blame.

“Why does Atlas Greene have your marker?”


	24. The eleventh hit

**_John_ **

“Four years ago?” He breathed, staring at Cassian; the latter looked down to avert his eyes—an unusual thing to do, he noted silently, for a man such as his old friend. It’s no secret that everyone working for the Camorra deals with deaths on no less than a daily basis; cleaning ladies in the D’Antonio mansion take out the trash every morning along with the random corpses lying outside their employer’s office, no question asked—as for Cassian, who practically grew up with the Camorra’s now-dead heiress and had been her bodyguard since he was 17, was known for looking his targets straight in their eyes as he pulled the trigger, unblinking. 

But now he refused to look John in the eyes, and his hands, the hands that had never dropped a knife even when covered in blood, now trembled as his grip on the bed sheet slowly tightened; and John Wick knew, at once, that Atlas Greene was more than just a business deal. 

“Four years ago,” He repeated in disbelief; “How—”

“Five,” Cassian corrected him drily, keeping his eyes fixed on the carpet. “I found her four years ago. Our…. collaboration, it lasted a year.”

“You gave up your marker,” He said, baffled, “So that you could convince a _fourteen-year-old_ to work for you as a temporary bodyguard?”

“No,” Cassian looked up, finally, to meet his eyes:

“ _I_ was the bodyguard. And the kid….” He swallowed, forcing himself to hold John’s gaze; but his glare was, compared with its usual sternness, a little less hard, a little less sure. 

“She was our bargaining chip.” 

And John understood, at last, what it all meant. 

A teenage runaway with too much to learn, too little to lose; a teenage _runaway,_ running away from something. Some _one_. 

Someone who had wanted Gianna D’Antonio’s head.

**_Atlas_ **

I tried to tell myself that I wasn’t mad at John for sparing him. That when I had wished for Cassian’s death in the past, it was strictly for logical concerns, nothing else.

That whatever had happened between us, four years ago, it had no effect on me now; that to me, Cassian was nothing more than a potential ally, a future threat. 

That I didn’t want vengeance. 

That I couldn’t afford to care. To hate. 

But the truth was, I left the living room because I was certain that if I had stayed, I’d kill them both. 

Well, at least I’d _try._ I’d try, then I’d get hurt doing that. Like, seriously hurt. Hence the logical decision: Leaving. 

Not that this was a bad thing, having emotions. I spent a great deal of time trying to figure them out, and simply being able to _feel_ , above all else, was reassuring, even if it was only anger that I could feel.

It let me know that I was improving, that I could become like one of them, the rest of them, if I kept trying. Kept _learning._ I had always been a quick study; a man in another house had told me as much, six years ago.

“You learn fast, ” He’d said to me, his eyes on my face instead of the marker in my outstretched hand.  
I had expected him to laugh, to gloat; I’d pictured him standing at his door, his arms crossed, the harsh lines around his sunken eyes creasing into each other as he shook his head and said, _What good would a 13-year-old’s marker do me?_

But he just nodded, plucked the marker from my fingers like a packet of girl scout cookies and slid it into the chest pocket of his shirt.  
“Looks like you’re just on time, Atlas.” A smile briefly spreaded across his stern, grim expression; and even though it didn’t make his lined face any less sour, even though I knew that he couldn’t possibly have been expecting me because I didn’t give him a single heads up before arriving at his doorstep, I couldn’t help but ask—

“On time for what?” 

“For dessert,” The lines on his face deepened and stretched, just like I’d pictured, but in a good way that made his sunken blue eyes shine. 

“I hope you like chocolate pudding.”

Six years. 

It seemed like a lifetime ago.

Even now, I still wondered what I would’ve done at the beginning, if I knew how all of this was going to end. 

If I did, would I have gone into that house, trailing his steps like a wayward shadow? Would I have sat down with him at his dinner table, too long and too grand for a man who lived alone, and told him the truth about me over an absurdly large bowl of chocolate pudding?

What would I have said to him instead, if I’d seen what happened in the end? Would I have told him more, or less?

I remember telling myself to _shut up shut up shut up, you’re not supposed to tell anyone you have to get up and get out of here you have to **run**_ ; but then he pushed the plate of biscuit towards me and said _there’s more_ in his soft, quiet voice, and suddenly I didn’t want to run anymore. I blamed it on the air inside, which had been warm and sweetened by cinnamon and the steam of burnt chocolate. I blamed it on the dull ache of hunger pulsing in my stomach, and his voice, which had been soft and gentle and kind; kindness had been an alien concept to me then, but just like he’d said—I learned fast. 

So like that, I stayed. I stayed, I finished the biscuit, and I told him everything; _he’s not going to believe me anyway,_ I’d thought to myself, and I told him what I really was.

Again, I’d expected him to laugh in my face, but he just listened. He listened, and nodded along like it all made sense when it actually didn’t, not even to me. Then I thought, _this is it. If someone knows the answer, it must be him._

_Can I ask you a question?_

He nodded. 

So I did just that. I asked my question.

_I guess,_ He’d said to me, somewhat apologetically, like he’d owed me an answer and was sorry that he couldn’t do better than a guess; but he didn’t owe me anything, nor I did him. 

That was the purpose of my visit, after all. To give him my marker, to pay my debt so that nothing was owed, and the world could go back to being all business and rules, everything bought, everything sold. 

A single dry, grating creak from the door pivot brought me back to the present. 

I realized that I’d stopped in front of Cassian’s bedroom, gazing into the moon-stained darkness ahead. 

It had been shared by all three of us, this room; every night, Gianna would insist that I join her on our one single bed while Cassian half-heartedly tried to offer his sleeping bag, and every night, I’d ignore them and huddle up in the far corner of the room, the only corner with a window nearby—the best escape route.

Without turning the lights on, I could still make out the shape of the bed, even Gianna’s amulet that she hanged on the bed frame from a golden chain; _to keep the nightmares away,_ she had told me when I asked. The sleeping bag lied sloppy and tangled on the floor, recently occupied, unlike the bed with its too-tidy sheets. It was like nothing had changed. 

Gianna could come out from that door any second now, all grumpy and wincing from last night’s wine; she’d sober up at once when she saw me standing there, however, and she’d say, _Dear God, Atlas, what on earth have you done to your hair?_

“I cut it,” I whispered into the dark, lifeless room. 

I thought about how hard I’d tried, for years, to convince myself I didn’t hate her. That there was nothing to forgive, no one to blame.  
Then I thought about that night with the chocolate pudding, the question I’d asked six years ago, and the answer I’d remembered, an answer from just another stranger. 

_How will I know, when I’m starting to become more…. Human?_

_I guess, when you’re starting to tell yourself that you **aren’t.**_

Something moved in the darkness ahead, and I went very still. 

_Eeeeek_. It moved again, inching closer; it was something tall and lean, with heavy feet and a narrow middle. A sudden rustle of fabric.

_Eeeeek._

Slowly, I raised my left hand and flicked the light switch on.

The raccoon I let in from a window hours ago now thrashed furiously at the foot of the old floor lamp, the one that was covered with a thin sheet by Cassian to soften the glare when we slept. Bob must’ve accidently tangled the sheet and gotten himself trapped. 

_Eeeeek,_ the metal plate of the lamp groaned, scraping the floor while Bob wrestled hopelessly against the fabric. 

I stepped inside, reached for the lamp and pulled the sheet off from the top. The raccoon leapt to his feet and scurried away, the sheet still a comical mess around his legs when he fled from the room, brushing pass my ankle. 

I lingered at the door for a little while, staring at the lamp in front of me. 

Just a trick of the light.

**_John_ **

“Eleven missed hits, and it was only the first month. I started to sleep in her room at night, just next to the bed. Everything she ate and drank had been tasted by me, every phone call, every mail she got, they went through me first. But it wasn’t enough.” Cassian’s voice was flat, emotionless.  
“One morning, I heard a sound when we were having breakfast in her room. I opened her closet and saw a man sitting in there, holding a hand grenade. I had no idea how long he’d been there.” 

“You said _eleven?_ ” He frowned. The Camorra might be a lot of things, but inefficient wasn’t one of them. “Did you get to question someone?”

“Some,” He looked away, “And they were completely useless.”

“If they wouldn’t tell you who sent them,” He pointed out, “Then how did you know it was the same person, or if it had anything to do with the kid—”

“I knew, and I knew who it was,” Cassian said, slowly, “Because the eleventh he sent was her father.”

Nothing he said made sense. 

John stared at him. 

“He tried to murder his own daughter?” 

“That was the final proof,” Cassian nodded. “I had my suspisions, but—”

“What exactly did this prove?” He scoffed, “That the Head of the Camorra had finally gone mad? Or was there someone on your list who likes to hire parents to kill their own children?”

“Call it both,” He shrugged, but there was a hint of unease in his tone. 

“But he wasn’t hired, John. He was…. _Controlled._ I’ve seen it before.”

That word, and the way Cassian said it sent a shiver down his spine. 

“I don’t understand.”

He turned, slowly, and looked at John. His eyes widened for a brief second, and it felt like he had just noticed that John was there. 

“No,” He blinked. “No, of course you don’t.” 

“Cassian—”

“—I shouldn’t be telling you this,” He said, shaking his head.  
“Anyway, the short version was that we could no longer stay at the D’Antonio mansion,” He said, drily.  
“Couldn’t trust anyone, you see. We went to get the kid first—luckily, she was on an errand in Rome at the time. I gave her my marker, she agreed to the terms, then the three of us started running. For a year, we didn’t stop. At one point we came to New York—” He gestured widely across the room and grimaced.  
“Isn’t exactly _D’Antonio-worthy,_ but we managed. At least for a few months.”  
“I think it’s a nice place,”  
“Thanks, John. The rent was insane.”  
He sighed, “The kid didn’t care for it, though. Wouldn’t even sleep on the bed.”

_If I was living in the house of two people who’d bag me like a head of cabbage and sell me to the man who killed my mother at a moment’s notice,_ He shuddered, _I wouldn’t even consider closing my eyes._

“So what happened?” He asked, trying to choke down the viciousness of that thought. “In the end?”

It only lasted a second, but John saw his shoulders tense and lines around his mouth harden.  
Or it could be just a trick of the light.

“We had a complication,” He said, flatly. 

“And the kid wound up in a hospital. By then, our security breach had gotten under control, and her service was no longer required. We went back to Rome.” 

He could tell, from the forced lightness in Cassian’s voice, that it wasn’t the whole story. 

“Her father has been ill ever since, so she took over his business but let him keep his seat at the Table. If the old man had done a right thing in his life, it’s making her his heir; he knew that Santino was never one for sentiment.” He chuckled, but there was no real laughter in the sound; John knew, in that moment, what he was thinking. The words he’d left unsaid.

_If he didn’t make her the heir, she would still be alive._

He cleared his throat. _I’m sorry_ , He wanted to say;  
_I’m sorry for killing your best friend._

“It’s your turn,” Cassian cleared his throat. “I’ve said enough.”

He frowned. “What?”

“The kid, John,” He turned to look him in the eyes;  
“You want to save her, and I want to know why.”

He opened his mouth. “I don’t—”

Cassian held up a hand. “You’re a terrible liar, John.” He shook his head, “And a worse actor. Did you honestly expect me to buy that bullshit speech of yours? You’re not fooling anyone. Not me, and certainly not the kid. I know what you’re doing, John. You’re trying to get her to stay away from you.”  
He shrugged, “Why? You know you need her help, now more than ever. You know the difference it’ll make, having even just one person on your side. If the kid’s really so naive that she’d risk her life saving yours—” He said, calmly,

“Why not let her?” He pretended he didn’t see John flinch at that simple suggestion. 

_Like how you would let her go back to that monster so Gianna could live?_

“No,” He shook his head.  
_I’m not like you, Cassian._  
“I can’t.”

“You said it yourself, John,” The calmness in his voice didn’t falter, “Whoever comes, you’ll kill them. You’ll kill them _all._ How are you going to do that, if you wouldn’t even let one kid die? ” 

“It’s not the same,” He protested weakly.

The indifference on Cassian’s face remained. “People die all the time.” 

“No,” He swallowed.

“No. I was a hit-man, Cassian. People die _because_ of me. They don’t die _for_ me.”

He said nothing. 

“I kept having these dreams,” John thought of those awful moments, the damp bed sheet beneath his palms, the cold sweat stinging his eyes.  
“I dreamed that I killed something. Something with scales.” He swallowed. “Its blood was cold, but when it died, it burned.”

Cassian simply looked at him. 

“A dragon,” He said, slowly. 

“You dreamed that you slain a dragon.”

“It was only a cub,” He realized he was shaking. “I put my hands around its neck, or a gun, a knife, against its chest—it’s so little, so young, its scales did nothing to save her—”

His throat tightened, when he heard himself say her. Not _it_. _Her._

“I keep hoping that she would run,” He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, there were tears. If Cassian had noticed, he didn’t say a thing.

“But she never did. She never did. I crushed her bones, and then there was her lungs, her heart, and I crushed them too—”

He let out a shaky, choked-up breath. “I killed her, Cassian. Again and Again. And it was easy,” He whispered, 

“It was _so easy._ ”

Cassian studied him in silence, for a little while. 

Then, to John’s surprise, he smiled. He didn’t recall ever seeing his friend smile when Gianna wasn’t around; it was a strange smile, small and thin and a little sad, but all the same. 

“Don’t do this to yourself, John.” Cassian said, softly. 

“She’s tougher than she looks.” 

He opened his mouth to protest, but then he remembered the disappeared burns on her back, the sedatives that rendered him unconscious in mere seconds but were useless against her; and suddenly, he didn’t know what to believe. 

“And you were wrong, by the way.” He added, “People do die for you. They _had_ died for you.” 

A prickle of shame tore through his gut. He thought of Marcus, and the countless nights he must’ve spent watching over him, through the scope of his sniper rifle— he had been alone on those rooftops, doing everything in his power to keep him safe; and alone, still, when he had been left to bleed out on his own staircase, with bullets in his chest. Abandoned. _Did he wish that I would come and hold his hand, at his dying moment?_

_I was a terrible friend,_ he thought, _to Marcus, to Cassian, to—_

“Tell me, John,” Cassian said, abruptly, “What did my ward say to you, after she slit her wrists?”

He tensed subconsciously, hearing him mention Gianna’s murder; but his friend didn’t have the same barely contained anger in his eyes from a month ago, when they were sitting side by side in the Roman Continental bar, promises of vengeance melting the ice in their drinks. 

Now, he just looked tired. Tired, and a little lost, like a soldier who’d just stumbled from the battlefield into the concrete jungle; the war was over, there was nothing left to fight for, and suddenly, he didn’t know where to go. 

This would always be the way Cassian looked, he realized, now that Gianna was gone.

“She said it was the way she wanted to go,” He looked away from Cassian’s eyes, mortified. “She said she lived her life her way, so she would die her way—”

“No,” Cassian said, calmly. “No, John. She did it for _you._ ”

He stared at him, unable to process what he’d heard. 

“She did it so you could be free,” Cassian continued, “So that you could run. She knew you would come for her, and she also knew that you couldn’t do it.”

“No,” He shook his head, “I _killed_ her. It was my fault—”

“They found a bullet in the hot tub,” Cassian ignored his rambling, “You couldn’t even finish the job, could you? The shot was supposed to go through her brain, but it barely even grazed her—”

“I _missed_ —” 

He didn’t know what he was doing; he had a feeling that this was the closest thing to forgiveness Cassian could offer, but he couldn’t afford it. He couldn’t.

“You don’t miss, John.” He said, quietly. “We all know that.”

He thought about his night at Gianna’s coronation, his strides stiff like a puppet as he approach the bathhouse, his fingers numb and cold from the gun in his hand; then he saw her standing there, in front of the mirror, and suddenly realized that he had come such a long way just to see her. He’d missed her too much. Cassian was right: he could never do it. 

Gianna wasn’t a good friend, but she was his best friend. His cruel, heartless friend, who’d given what little heart she’d left to him, to set him free. And he couldn’t do the same for her. 

“I’m sorry,” He said, finally. “Cassian, listen….”

“I want you to know that I when I broke the Continental rule, I broke it for her. I didn’t go after Santino because he burned my house down. I did it because I cared about her.”

“You know that I can’t forgive you,” Cassian sighed. 

“Santino was her brother, her blood, and they had loved each other…. Even to the very end. But you, John,” He said, slowly. “You were her friend.”  
“And I was her family.”

His throat tightened. “And the kid?”

Cassian glanced at him. “She,”

“Was her greatest regret.”

_But she won’t become mine. She can’t._

“Cassian….” He took a deep breath. “Don’t let her die for this. Please.”

_Don’t let her die for me._

Cassian eyed him for a moment, then shook his head. “Always so dramatic. No one’s going to die for anything; she’s survived England before, she can do it again.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“What are you going to do about it? She’s not one of your dogs, John. She’s not going to _stay_ just because you told her to.”

“Then there must be something I can tell her,” He pleaded, “Cassian, you know her better than I—”

“There’s something I can tell _you_ ,” He cut him off, a little harshly, “If you want the kid to stay away from you, mentioning her mother won’t help. There isn’t enough salt you can rub in that wound, John. Things like that don’t work on her.”  
He inhaled. “Atlas, she…. She’s different. It’s the way she’s wired, I think. She can’t feel, or care about certain things—at least not like us, not exactly.”

“For god’s sake, Cassian,” He scoffed, “She’s a teenager. Every teenager’s weird like that.”

But he didn’t believe himself, even as he said it; there was definitely something off about the kid, something worse than a prolonged rebellion phase—

A loud crash from upstairs interrupted his train of thought. He bolted upright and reached for his gun, then realized he didn’t have one. 

Cassian only rolled his eyes.

“It’s the raccoon,” He stood up from the edge of the bed, his torn shirt hanging off him. “I’ll go check on it. You stay here and rest.”

“You have a pet raccoon?”

“Yes.”

“I want to see it.”

“His name is Bob,” Cassian said, simply. “You’ll see him when you can get out of bed without throwing up. Now try to rest, and when you’re feeling better, go talk to the kid.”  
He sighed. “I’d tell you you need to be honest with her, but if you can’t bring yourself to tell her the reason, John….” 

“ _Give_ her a reason.”

He stared up at him. “A reason to stay?”

“No,” Cassian shook his head.

“A reason to come back.” 

He turned, heading for the stairs.

“Cassian?” He cleared his throat. 

There was one part of his story that didn't feel right; it was the way he said it, perhaps. Like he was trying to convince himself that it didn't happen, whatever it was.

“How did the kid end up in a hospital, four years ago?” 

He was silent, for a little while; just when he was starting to think that he would never get an answer, Cassian spoke. 

“There was a fire,” His voice was so faint, John almost missed it entirely.

He left the room without another word.


End file.
